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OF 



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U TREATING THE FOLLOWING SUBJECTS 



A Canvasser's Dream; A Grand Council; Satan Makes a Speech 
. Giving the Result of 6,000 Years' Study of Man ; Exults 
at His Success; The Earth's Crust is Four Miles Thick; 
Inside it is Hollow ; at the Poles are Large Open- 
ings Through which Pass Vast Multitudes to 
His Grand Auditorium ; A Citizen of 
Oakland Taken by a Friend to His 
Majesty's Latest Grand Coun- 
cil ; A Grand Feast ; 
Toasts and Speeches. 



'Fpe 0LD Fe^TY-j^iNEi^'g ^to^y. 



By W. B. HARRIS 



OAKLAND, CAL. : 

F»UBT.ISHED BY THE AUTHOR 

1884. 




■i^ 




J- 74^/ 



OP THB 

UNIVERSITY 

INTRODUCTION 



Dear Reader: — Any port in a storm. I am old, penniless, 
and friendless. After an exceedingly active life, on the border, 
in the mountains, mining, or on plains, cattle and sheep-raising, 
I find myself at sixty years old in Oakland — broke. I have no 
means of a livelihood. In youth and early manhood I could 
devise a means of making money. Now, old and sick, I can do 
nothing but write a book. The storm of poverty and want is 
terrible. This is my only port, the writing of a book. A Chris- 
tian gentleman, E. S. Fowler, goes my security to my publisher. 
He and others who heard my manuscript read, were good 
enough to call it very readable. 

In the following pages the ground is taken that God and the 
devil have been in the world from Adam's creation, battling for 
character for their kingdoms. God with the Holy Spirit and the 
word of his truth endeavors to lead man up into a better and 
higher life. The position is taken that it is his privilege to go on 
learning of God in this world until he reaches a plane of happi- 
ness perfectly incomprehensible to the intellect of the unredeemed 
man. But man being totally depraved, and loving darkness 
rather than light, the devil, with his vast cunning and experience, 
has largely the advantage, and is peopling his kingdom more 
rapidly than God. He is in politics, shaping national measures 
to suit his purpose. He is in the courts, making judges follow 
old precedents to the enslavement of mankind. He is in all 
those Governments where the land is all in the hands of the few, 
and the common people are forced into the cities and towns, 



4 Introduction. 

making the establishment and maintenance of standing armies 
necessary. He is an accomplished devil. He is better educated 
than any faculty of a college in the world; knows vastly more. 
He is perfectly accomplished in State craft. He has been able 
to cheat the United States for the last hundred years out of the 
realization of the most important facts which her history has 
developed, that is, that homes in the United States are the grand 
power upon which is based all modern civilization. The devil 
wants us to think that it is education, and he is constantly urging 
the country to educate the negroes and poor whites of the South,. 
by some national provision looking to that end. Give the negroes 
homes, break up the system of land monopoly, all over the Souths 
divide the land up among the inhabitants of the South, and 
education is sure to follow. I do not mean to rob the white 
people of their land, but tax land held in larger quantities than 
1 60 or 300-acre tracts higher than any other property, and appro- 
priate the money proposed for education to the buying of a home 
for a family, which money the family refund as fast as they be- 
come able. California is a splendid illustration of this matter; 
land monopoly covered every valley from San Diego to Shasta. 

The State has had a splendid school fund from her earliest 
history, thanks to the United States Government. Its citizens 
have been forced into the different towns and cities, which have 
grown much faster than improvements in the country warranted. 
The schools have performed their duty, and now we already see 
the result in a generation of educated young men and women. In 
no State in this Union will you find so many young men in pen- 
itentiaries and jails. The places of honor and power are not in 
the hands of young men raised in the State. On the contrary, 
they are in the hands of young men raised in other States, or 
Ireland, or Germany. 

Go to your churches on Sunday, and a large majority of the 



Introduction. 5 

men have gray beards, indicating an Eastern nativity. The 
young men raised and educated here are diminutive in mind and 

body. 

The devil has cheated the State out of the million beautiful 
homes, which she ought to have had, and would have had, if the 
feudal land system, with the devil as chief council in the courts, 
had not won his cause against God and right and the best interest 
of the human race. It is a great deal easier for the devil to tear 
down a civilization that God and home and truth have been gen- 
erations building up, than it is to build it. If we were to lose our 
homes in America, if land monopoly were established all over the 
United States as it is in California and Mexico, we would have a 
standing army to maintain law and order in less than ten years. 
The larger holdings are rapidly absorbing the smaller, and capi- 
talists are having established a nucleus, around which will gather 
a standing army, and then our liberties are gone. 

The devil is using another element to lower our civilization. 
A constant stream of low, cunning, unprincipled foreigners are 
flooding our land, filling our cities and towns. We must save our 
land for the Dutch and Irish and negroes that are here. We 
must legislate so as to make homes for our present homeless pop- 
ulation. One man with a home, and under God educating his 
children, is a bulwark in favor of law and order and liberty. A 
hundred men loving lawlessness and disorder, who require ten or 
fifteen constables to look after them, will lower the civilization of 
a thousand. Our civilization is like a brook, flowing over a grassy 
plain, clear and beautiful. The emigration from foreign countries 
is a band of hogs wallowing in the brook, spoiling its waters. 



SATAN'S COURT. 



Thursday, Jan. 3, 1884. — Arose early with the view of can- 
vassing Woodland for >the Prohibitionist; when business opened, 
I commenced. I received the same or nearly the same answer 
from all: "No, I have all the papers I want." A great many 
said, " I favor the cause, but I think we will have a drought, and 
I must economize on every hand." No man put his hand in his 
pocket and said, "Yes, here is the money, you are engaged in a 
good fight and I will help you." At noon I was very tired an4 
hungry. Ladies came to the door and said, " No, sir; we don't 
want it," and unceremoniously shut the door in my face in order 
to get back to their dinner. No one asked me to eat. I was 
genteelly dressed and looked more like a capitalist, than a poor 
old canvasser for a paper advocating an unpopular cause. At 
last hunger must be appeased; I had to walk a mile to a restau- 
rant to get my dinner. So I watched closely, and finally I saw 
a Bible on a center table, and summoned courage to say, " Won't 
you let me have a little dinner? I am old and hate to walk a 
mile to a restaurant. She reluctantly fed me. After dinner I 
thought I would try farmers. So I started out. They looked 
upon me with evident scorn, and all declined to take my paper. 

At night, footsore and tired, I approached the town of Cache- 
ville. I called at the preacher's first. His wife met me at the 
door; I handed her a paper, at the same time taking a letter 
from Mr. Dunn, from a Bible and handing it to her, addressed 
" To all whom it may concern," stating my business, and recom- 
mending me to Christians; I was invited in, and rested my old, 
aching limbs a minute, when 1 was politely referred to Mr. Griffin, 
a leading member of the church. I observed it was sundown, 
and that I would go and see him. He received me at the door 
with courtesy, but did not invite me in. He was well dressed and 
had a fine house, evidently a man well-to-do. In answer to my 



8 Satan's Court. 

usual inquiry, he said he was a prohibitionist, favored the cause, 
and did all he could for it and the church, but did not want my 
paper. I asked him to let me stay all night; he said, no, he was 
crowded and could not possibly accommodate me. I reasoned 
the case with him a little; he pulled out a half dollar and gave 
me; I put it down in my book as a subscription for three months 
to my paper; he did not want me to do so. I resolved not to take 
charity; he evidently wanted to make me the recipient of his alms. 
I was no beggar; I had ten dollars in my pocket. I did want 
to economize by paying a less price for food and lodging to a 
friend of the good cause than I would have to pay hotel-keepers. 
At the hotel I paid forty cents for a very poor supper, a poor 
man's day's waajes. I got a bed at a private house and went to 
bed, completely worn out, at six o'clock, and terribly disgusted 
with California farmers. Not one cent had I taken in the whole 
day. I soon fell asleep and dreamed. 

I had in my dreams, over and over again, the interviews of the 
day with the cold, hard-hearted, rich farmers. Their looks of 
superciliousness haunted me in my dream. I had interviewed a 
few suffering tramps during the day. Their worn, haggard, de- 
sponding looks also haunted my dreams. From out of this chaos 
my dreams took shape. I dreamed I was again a boy on the 
Chattahoochee River, Forsythe County, Georgia, with my old 
friend. Singleton Howell; he was, the last time I saw him, twenty- 
one years old, six feet high, and weighed 200 pounds. He had 
just fallen heir to a large farm, and over a hundred negroes. 
More than twenty families, poor white trash, were living off his 
bounty. He was as good as it was possible to be to his negroes. 
To be his property was the negro's paradise; but he was a terri- 
ble rake. Not less than forty children, black and white, pointed 
with lineaments unmistakable to him as their father. He was 
very popular with men and women. He drank just enough to 
be convivial. He was honored by a seat in the Legislature at 
twenty-two years of age, which place he exchanged only for a 
seat in Congress, in 1840. 

Well, I dreamed that in front of the hotel in Cacheville I 
met a pale, haggard, shivering tramp, who surprised me by saying, 
" Billy [that is my name], give me a quarter to get a drink." 



Satan's Court. 9 

Looking up I beheld my old friend, Singleton Howell. " What," 
says I, extending my hand, but to my surprise there was no hand 
reached out to take mine. He did seem to glide off with my 
quarter, and I saw him take two glasses full of whisky and gulp 
it down. He again stood before me without walking in the 
street. Said I, "Are you a ghost?" he answered, "Yes." I 
said, " Tell me all about it." " Well," said he, " I was killed in 
thelate war, and, of course, went straight to hell; but, Billy, I 
was a good man in this world, and I got a good place in hell. 
The devil gave me a place of high honor; but still it was hell. 
There was gnashing of teeth. There was wailing. There was 
the worm that dieth not. There was felt by all an eternal banish- 
ment from the presence of God, and all that was good. Strange 
to say, all my negroes that died went straight to Heaven. For a 
long time they shouted and sang, ' Glory to the Lamb,' but they 
seemed, after I was in hell about twenty years, to have a new 
arrival. I owned an old negro man who was incessantly boring 
me on religion. He would say, ' Massa, quit your sins, repent, 
and turn to Jesus; you are too good a man to go to hell; all are 
under condemnation without Jesus. But I laughed at him, and 
praised him, and gave him good clothes, and books, and his 
time. But he always worked. He did more work than two 
common men, and was the best singer I ever heard. Well, a 
thousand times I heard him praying for his poor massa. He had 
full charge of my place and property. One day he came to me 
and said: ' Massa, massa, Mr. Hammond whipped Jeff de odder 
day, and Jeff run away; he is a powerful good nigger, and is 
mighty anxious for you to buy him.' Said I, ' I have not got the 
money.' He answered, 'You borrow de money, and we will give 
in all hands and save enough on de crop extra to pay for him.' 
So I met Hammond in Warsaw that day and said, ' Has Jeff run 
away ? he answered, ' Yes; and by God when I get him I'll whip 
him to death.' Said I, ' You are a d — d brute ! ' Well, you know 
we had had many a fight, Hammond and L He knew I was the 
best man, and only said with set teeth, ' I'll shoot you, G — d — 
you, if you interfere between me and my niggers. You treat your 
niggers so well it spoils all the niggers in the neighborhood.' 
' Well,' said I, ' come over to the hotel and take dinner with me; 



10 Satan's Court. 

I have wine, brandy, and everything.' I touched on his weak 
point; he came and drank heavily during the meal. I managed 
to steal his pistols, and hide them. He swore he would kill me. 
I humored his ferocious temper; we played cards, drank, caroused; 
got drunk ourselves, and made everything else drunk that we 
could. Hammond was terrible stingy, and when drunk wanted 
to gamble; but he had sworn never to gamble any more. Not- 
withstanding this I got him to gambling, and as he had no money 
I loaned him a hundred, which I soon won. Drink and avarice 
by this time had stimulated his appetite for gambling to the high- 
est pitch. He asked for more money; I refused, unless he gave me 
security. I told him I would buy Jeff. He gnashed his teeth, 
and his ferocity was horrible; but passion and appetite favored 
me, and it all resulted in my holding a bill of sale of Jeff before 
morning. 

"Well, I owned 300 negroes when the war broke out. 
Nearly 200 were procured pretty much in the foregoing manner 
through old Abe's influence. In the battle of Balls Bluff I was 
killed, and of course went to hell. I have been there twenty 
years. About a hundred of my negroes have died or been killed, 
and nearly all have gone straight to Heaven; their faith had 
saved them. As before remarked, there were many different 
places in hell. The devil honored me and gave me little devils 
for my servants. I had whisky and wine and gambling till I was 
tired to death of them. That kind of life had to last forever 
without change. Every man and woman continued the life they 
had led on earth. Whisky sellers seemed to have a worse life 
than any other class. Their bodies were swelled up to enormous 
proportions; they fed ravenously with an insatiable hunger, upon 
what they had robbed of helpless women and children. A great 
plant of a fiery color, smelling of brimstone, grew up from their 
feet, named Want. They fed continuously, unceasingly, with 
awful unrest, terrible to look upon. Another class near them 
was the California farmer. A terrible lust for wheat and land 
and horses and carriages, and brag, consumed them. Also a fear, 
a horrible fear that a tramp would come along, made their eyes 
bulge out about an inch. They bragged from morning till night 
on their honesty and liberality. All this was never to end. 



Satan's Court. 11 

''Well, one day I was looking over to where a vast, countless 
multitude were singing and feasting, and shaking hands, and look- 
ing peaceful and happy. My eyes naturally wandered to my 
negroes, when I gazed in that direction. I was amazed to see 
them all going toward the banks of Jordan to meet some one; 
they looked very happy. What was my surprise to see old Abe, 
for it was him they were going to welcome. As was the general 
custom in paradise, all who had done good in the name of Jesus 
were welcomed |by the recipients of their favors. I could not 
help but reflect how much better it was to be welcomed by a host 
on that side than have a fortune on the earth. 

" Well, Abe was gladly greeted by that happy band; he was 
carried on angels' wings to the vast throng who surrounded the 
throne. Abe was very humble, and took a place where he 
thought he was very low. All at once a host of beautiful angels 
left the throne, and in a moment they surrounded old Abe, and 
placing their wings under him they gently lifted him and wafted 
him up, and bore him up to the feet of the Lamb. I then heard 
the words: ' He that abaseth himself shall be exalted. Enter 
thou into the joys of thy Lord.' 

"Old Abe said, 'Lord, I prayed all my life for my young 
massa.' Just then his eyes fell upon me over in hell; without 
one word, he fell upon his knees. The command went forth that 
I was to have another chance on earth. So I started back on 
the road I went to hell, on through the grave. I had heard those 
cursed old Californians bragging so much, that, as I had my 
choice of places, I concluded to. come here on the Sacramento 
River. 

" Well, I landed here about two years ago, flat broke. What 
should I do? Hunger and thirst must be satisfied, and clothing 
must be had. I had never worked. I had no professional edu- 
cation. What should I do for a living ? I wanted whisky, but 
had no money. I was back to reform, but somehow I could not 
believe on Jesus for me, even when I knew that he had saved 
millions of hosts. I thought I would lecture, but I could not get 
an audience. I thought I would keep men from selling whisky, 
as that was the worst hell, but they w^ould not believe me. I 
worked for farmers, but I — Oh, it was terrific t^d^^feijjave led, 




12 Satan's Court. 

and I am going back to hell; it is a much better place than it is 
to be poor and friendless in California. Why, Billy, you keep 
your trust. Obey the Scriptures, do good, make all happy whom 
you meet, as you journey through life, and above all look every 
moment to Jesus; and that which you enter upon by so doing is 
better than gold, and lands, or houses, or merchandise. When 
you die and go over yonder, hug and kiss old Abe for me; tell 
him I thank him with all my heart; but there is no chance for a 
poor old tramp in California to go to Jesus. The people here 
have him all surrounded in fine churches, with fine clothing and 
pomp and splendor. Tell Abe I said it was better to be in hell 
than to be here, and I am going back. 

" What are you doing, Billy ? Lend me another quarter ? Billy, 
what, are you canvassing for the Prohibitionist here among these 
farmers ? Well, I guess I won't take your quarter. Poor fellow, 
I am awful sorry for you. A poor old quill-driving author, here 
in California ! To think that I, who am going back to hell, 
should pity you ! You will be happy forever, if you obey God; 
but, my dear friend, the martyrs who were led to the stake with 
great rusty chains eating into their flesh, had a better chance 
than you. Good-bye, Billy — by the way I will take that quarter. 
Nothing on earth is so exacting and imperious as whisky. When 
our system gets well loaded, like a magnet the larger quantity 
draws the smaller. The poor drunkard can feel the drink draw- 
ing him five miles. No wonder the saloon-keeper knows he has 
a bill of sale of drunkards. Well, Billy, good-bye; I am going 
to hell; I will see you across the gulf in Heaven if you are faith- 
ful." At this he glided into the hotel and took two more large 
glasses of whisky. 

He did this hurriedly. Setting down the glass the last time, 
he took the bottle and turned it up to his mouth, and was rapidly 
getting outside the contents, when I saw distinctly the bar-keeper 
take a pistol from behind the counter, level it at my friend's heart, 
and fire. The report of the pistol awoke me. The dream was 
so vivid and impressive that I at once arose from my bed and 
wrote it down. With the dream in my head, about 8 o'clock I 
commenced canvassing the town. An interview with one man 
will give the reader a correct idea of a day's work. The can- 



Satan's Court. 13 

vasser being told that Mr. K was a prohibitionist, and his 

house being pointed out, he repaired thither. He rang the bell. 

The door was opened by Mrs. K , a well-dressed, middle- 
aged lady. 

Canvasser. — "I am working for the Frohibitionist. I want 
subscribers." 

Lady. — "Yes, indeed; well, it is a cause that I think has 
God's sanction. I am a strong Prohibitionist." 

Canvasser. — "Well, ma'am, won't you subscribe?" 

Lady. — "Well, no; it's going to be a dry season, and we are 
carrying as many newspapers as we can." 

Canvasser. — "Well, we are on the eve of a grand boom. 
Prohibition stock is going right up. The people all over the land 
are waking up. The enormous taxation arising from the trade in 
order to prosecute drunken criminals, and to feed them in jails, 
penitentiaries, and poor-houses, is the argument that reaches every 
tax-payer." 

Lady. — " Yes; I am an old settler here, and know, of my own 
knowledge, of the loss of six splendid homes. You see that 
house, and that — " pointing to empty houses that stood in the dis- 
tance. "I will tell you how that one was settled, and how the 
home was afterwards broken up; but come in." 

The canvasser, being tired, thought he would rest and 
hear the story. 

So the lady continued: — 

"Mr. Turner, with four children, came across the plains in 
1850, stopping first at what was then called Hangtown. He had 
six yoke of good oxen, and moved over here and took up that 
quarter-section of land. We took up this. He and his wife were 
from the border in Missouri. He was a good hunter and game 
abounded. Every pound that he killed was worth from two to 
four bits a pound. He bought a scythe and cut some hay, and 
hauled it over to Sacramento, getting as high as $100, and even 
$150 per load. Every time he went to town he got a little tipsy. 
In that condition he spent a fearful amount of money. He had 
no caution nor acquisitiveness, and very large friendship. 

"The poor man loved his family, but the cruel bondage to 
whisky ruined him. In 1856 he sold his cattle and paid for his 



14 Satan's Court. 

land. He had planted fruit trees and vines, and at that time was 
making wine. He went to the city with a load of hay. That 
saloon-keeper over in town met him in Sacramento, where they 
commenced drinking, and while drunk the saloon-keeper won his 
money, wagon, and team. When he sobered up the next morn- 
ing, he felt so ashamed and miserable that he swore he. would 
drown himself. The saloon-keeper told him that if he would 
mortgage his farm for the money, he could take his team and go 
home with it. So it was agreed. They had a mortgage written 
by a lawyer and duly recorded in Washington, which was the 
county seat. After Turner's return home he was very miserable, 
keeping the above facts a secret from his wife, who was the hard- 
est working woman I ever saw. 

" I happened over there the day the saloon-keeper came for 
the money, and I shall never forget the deserted, ashy, forlorn look 
that spread over her face. She said: 'Whisky killed my poor 
mother and has made me and my children slaves. O God, if 
there is a God, this is three good homes I have helped.that man 
to make, and I have worked, and saved, and patched, stayed at 
home and never went to church, and my children have never had 
anything to -wear to school, and they are, just like I am, growing 
up in ignorance.' All these fine ranches," pointing toward other 
houses, " were first made by drinking men, who got in debt and 
had to sell. Whisky is the mortal enemy of homes." 

That evening I returned to Sacramento and was ordered to 
Oakland. 

I came to Oakland Monday, January 7, 1884, to canvass 
for the State Prohibitionist. I was to get for my work $1.00 per 
day and board, and an interest in the paper in case we built it up 
and made it a valuable property. 

Oakland was known as the "City of Churches," It was the 
seat of the State University. The wealth and taste of the whole 
Pacific Coast had been lavished upon its improvements. There 
were more beautiful residences and well improved grounds than 
in any place I had ever seen. San Francisco, with all her mill- 
ionaire merchants, had come over here to build among the old 
oaks residences in which to spend, wdth wife and children, their 
last years on earth. Any one would say that it was a good field 



Satan's Court. 15 

to work for such a cause. I began about 9 o'clock on Eighth 
Street, intending to go over the whole city street by street. At 
every house it was about the same, " No," or " No, sir." I was a 
pretty decent-looking old gentleman, working for my own paper — 
an honorable calling. What was the matter ? Monday, Tuesday, 
Wednesday all passed with the same result. 

I had always had terrible pluck and energy, and unbounded 
faith in any of my well matured plans. I began to get scared. 
Is my brain softening? ^ave I got to work in the wrong cause? 
A hundred persons wished me success every day in my labors. 
Should I give up the battle and beat a hasty retreat and go back 
to Sacramento? About an average of one a day, after hard try- 
ing, for three weeks. What was I to do? Work till I was very 
tired, sit up till midnight writing a pamphlet to publish, which I 
wanted to sell that I might get bread and butter. On the eighteenth 
day of January I worked hard with poor luck; attended meeting 
at the headquarters of the Salvation Army, went with feeble steps 
to my lonely room, and wrote with throbbing brow, till midnight. 

When I sadly retired to my virtuous couch I could not sleep. 
I again interviewed beautiful, richly dressed women, rang door 
bells, and was terribly nauseated with politeness. 

Suddenly my dream took shape. My old friend Singleton 
Howell was again troubling my dreams, but very different this 
time from his appearance before. 

I dreamed that I went to a large and costly church in Oak- 
land. I was shown to a seat in the back part of the church by 
the usher. x\lthough well dressed, I imagined all eyes were turned 
upon me on account of my failure to come up to the fashionable 
standard. I dreamed that I was trying to get into a devout frame 
of mind. When the preacher arose, what was my surprise to see 
in the tall, well dressed, sanctimonious divine, my old friend 
Singleton Howell. I dreamed that he read, in a most resonant 
voice, a beautiful hymn, which was sung by the richest-looking 
choir I had ever s'een. 

The preacher, standing, prayed most thrillingly. Says I, 
"What is it? I am dreaming," but I could not awake. When 
he arose he took for his text: — 

" Get thee behind me, Satan, for it is written thou shalt not 



16 Satan's Court. 

« 

live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the 
mouth of God." 

I knew that preacher was my old friend, Singleton Howell, 
that he was a ghost, and that he had been dead and in hell twenty- 
two years; that as a particular providence he was allowed once 
more to return to earth that he might embrace Christ; that after 
trying about two years in California, he had concluded the task an 
impossible one for a tramp, and had concluded to return to the 
place from whence he came as being preferable for a penniless 
tramp to this. The church, I dreamed, was the most costly 
structure I had ever seen of its kind. The audience was the 
finest dressed and most cultured in appearance I had ever seen in 
my life. I imagined that there were the marks of fast living upon 
the countenances of all, both old and young. An indulgence in 
fine wines had forced to the surface of many fair cheeks and 
brows, blue veins that would otherwise have sought to flow in a 
more hidden channel. 

The preacher, six feet high, a perfect specimen of manhood, 
with a very large head and symmetrical features, except the mouth, 
which was very large; his voice, peculiar and resonant, so per- 
fectly trained that every person in that vast audience caught every 
intonation. 

There was perfect self-abandon. He stood towering, motion- 
less, at first pale, but as he proceeded the color deepened. Such 
a flow of electric oratory I had never heard, as he pictured fallen 
man at the mercy of a foe who possessed perfect knowledge of 
man's weaknesses, and had been practicing his arts on man from 
the day of Adam's fall. By nature an alien from God, and with 
this powerful foe to mislead and tempt with such power. He 
then, after a long pause, turned to the great deliverer, Christ, and, 
with manner and eloquence, electrified the whole audience. He 
begat an emotional tension almost painful to bear. 

His sermon lasted one hour. At its close he said, " Let us 
pray." He leaned forward, and with a perfect pathos appealed 
to Heaven for help against so powerful an enemy. At its close 
he said, "Sing the doxology." The congregation arose, and, be- 
ing dismissed, they seemed spell-bound. The preacher walked 
through the aisles shaking hands. I remained standing also. He 



Satan's Court. 



17 



made his way to where I stood, and with both his he caught my 
hand and said, " Come to my room to-night," leaving a twenty-dollar 
gold piece and his card in my hand. 

On leaving the church I immediately sought a restaurant and 
satisfied my hunger. 

I was very impatient for the hour to arrive, as the reader may 
imagine. 

At nine o clock I knocked. The door was opened by Single- 
ton himself. He embraced me very affectionately and led me 
into a splendidly furnished apartment, in the center of which was 
a table covered with all the delicacies of the season, brandy, 
whisky, wine and everything that could tempt the appetite. Two 
ladies lounged voluptuously upon a sofa, to whom he introduced 
me, as his oldest _and best friend. I saw plainly that they had 
been waiting for me, for they pulled a chair out from the table, 
bidding me be seated. When we were all seated. Singleton poured 
from a bottle|a glass of wine for each, and said, " Billy, drink to 
the h^ealth of my king." I bowed, and blushed, and stammered, 
and drank. They all did the same. "Now," said he, "lam 
burning to gratify your curiosity." I now saw they were all full 
of wine, and he wanted to talk, so he commenced. "You know 
that saloon-keeper shot me, and you awoke, well that was all true. 
I vanished when^he pulled the trigger. It scared the saloon- 
keeper to death. He immediately embraced religion, and I sup- 
pose he will go to Heaven. I dropped my humanity and went 
back to hell, I confess a little ashamed of myself. Spirits have 
only to will it, and in a second they travel millions of miles. I 
saw a vast multitude gathered together as I approached my old 
quarters. I will say to you, for your better understanding, that 
there is no law of gravitation in that place. A spirit flying through 
ether with the rapidity of thought can instantly stop, fold his 
wings, and rest on ether. There is no atmosphere. When you 
speak, your voice travels millions of miles in a moment. Well, I 
was met on my approach by a vast multitude of the inhabitants. 
A leader stepping to the front took off his hat, and, bowing low, 
said that he was profoundly honored by being the bearer from 
his majesty of welcome news to you, sir. We have gotten up in 
honor of your return, the grandest reception ever known in Hades. 
2 



Satan's Court. 

You were the first man ever released from this place and allowed 
to return to earth, and have one more chance of getting to 
Heaven. And furthermore, sir, you are the first man that ever 
voluntarily took up his line of march for this country. When you 
were talking to that old canvasser in Cacheville, imps of his 
majesty heard you and instantly reported your conversation. He 
ordered an ovation. Not a soul in all his majesty's vast domain 
but will be here to witness your triumphant return. I am Cain 
who killed my brother, and of course I am the oldest settler from 
earth, in this country, and I never saw a man who did not have 
to be brought here in chains. Just listen to the clanking chains. 
They wear them forever. 

" Just then there was an immense scattering or parting in the 
vast multitude, and his majesty himself appeared. He called me 
to him. I approached him. He caught me to his breast and 
shed great tears over me. Said he, ' There is all the vast throng 
that Noah preached to, and who would not repent there in Nine- 
veh. There is Sodom and Gomorrah. There are the wicked 
children of Israel who fell in the desert. In a word,' said he, 
'all the nations that forget God are here.' [I had drank, in my 
dream, a whole bottle of wine, and he pointed to the brandy and 
we begun on that.] 

" We could see over into Heaven, where there were vast mul- 
titudes, but incomparably smaller than the multitudes surround- 
ing his majesty. A great feast was prepared in my honor. 
Speeches were made by men who lived before the flood, enumer- 
ating the very few means then employed to deceive men and make 
them worship idols. God was jealous, and that nation which en- 
gaged in idolatrous worship was allowed to follow it up in hell to 
all eternity. There were speeches made by a large number of 
old Jews, describing the manner used by his majesty's servants to 
lead them from the true worship. His majesty himself made a 
speech, heard plainly by every inhabitant of his dominion. I 
will give you a brief synopsis of his speech. 

SATAN MAKES A SPEECH. 

" ' I have earnestly studied man's weak points from his creation. 
God has often given me great trouble. He at first put into man 
a disposition to worship. I soon learned to take every advantage 



Satan's Court. 19 

of that by flattering their vanity. I could always delude them 
into erecting an altar to some other God. Before the taking pos- 
session of Canaan by the Israelites, I had it pretty much my own 
way. He then made a law that beat me. 

" ' That was this. He divided the land up into inheritances, or 
homes, that had an effect on the human head and heart that was 
always too much for me. You see they were placed in a condi- 
tion, the home condition, that naturally improved them. It made 
them loyal to God, and country, and virtue, and I always draw off 
all my forces when I find the land in any country divided up 
into homes. It was that condition that made the civilization of 
Egypt. She arose to be the granary of the world. Well, I filled 
Jerusalem and the cities of ancient Egypt with wine and beautiful 
women and idols, so that when the young men of the homes full 
of love to God and virtue, went on business to the cities, they 
went back intoxicated with the idea of leading a city life. They 
would sell out and move to the city, and soon get to loving wine 
and women, and finally worshiping the gods that I had ingen- 
iously contrived to have introduced along with foreigners. You 
see the heathen were there on account of the increased prosperity 
occasioned by these homes. 

" 'You see as soon as homes were established, that is, every 
head of a family owned what land he could make productive, 
they would build school houses and churches, and work, and 
study the resources of their land, and fight for their homes. But 
just let me get them away to the city, and they would lose the 
improvement in a week or two that it took a generation to build 
up. The great power of the Romans was built up on the home 
condition. The learning and wisdom of the Greeks had the 
home condition as a foundation. God made that a law of nature, 
just as he made gravitation a material law. 

" 'On the decline of the Roman Empire, I induced the Gauls 
to make war on the tribes and nations in the south of Europe. 
When they conquered a province, they took possession of it in 
favor of the prince, and he divided the land up into large tracts, 
among his most renowned followers. The common people had 
no homes; they belonged to the soil, and when the land passed 
from one owner to another, they, the common people, went with 



20 Satan's Court. 

it. That was called the Feudal Land System. That system com- 
pletely destroyed the plans of God; not but what a few poor 
people always looked to Jesus. I never could get entire control; 
but I brought about the Dark Ages, which lasted nearly sixteen 
centuries; and if it had not been for my neglect, I could have 
kept mankind in just that condition.' Here the devil tore his 
hair and grew wrathful at the thought of his want of vigilance. 

" * I was busily engaged in other parts when Sir Walter Raleigh 
gave to six hundred immigrants a home each, in case they would 
remain and cultivate the soil. There is where I made the great- 
est mistake of my life. This was at Jamestown, State of Virginia. 
They concluded to accept the offer, and when they did, they 
called into being a power which had been dead twenty centuries, 
and in spite of all my determined cunning, has been the cause of 
all modern civilization in the world. 

" ' I cannot touch one of God's laws. It is a law that when a 
man looks to Jesus, he is saved. If he looks to him all the time, 
he is perfectly saved. 

"'So you see these people built school houses and churches, 
and met together and worshiped God. He was well pleased and 
had all power, and blessed them and prospered them as no people 
ever did prosper. Under the home power I could do nothing. 
They rapidly raised up a superior people, purified by the Lord, 
and zealous of good works. It took only a hundred and fifty 
years to raise up Washington and his armies. 

" * Then followed the establishment of the great American 
Republic. I was terrified. What could I do ? Here was prog- 
ress, and I could do nothing to prevent it. 

" ' Then followed that generation which made so many new 
inventions. When the cotton gin was discovered, I thought I 
could take a grand advantage of it by fastening, like a festering 
sore, slavery upon that people forever; but the Southern planters 
were good men and Christians, actually bettering the condition of 
their negroes. Of course I got a few Yankees, Englishmen, and 
Irishmen who went down South and brutally treated their negroes, 
like Dick Hammond. 

" After an area of great prosperity the Mexican War came on, 
and the United States acquired Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, 



Satan's Court. 




21 



and California, all covered with large land grants. That was just 
into my hand, and I have been reaping a good harvest ever since. 

" ' Then when the War of the Rebellion came on, I managed 
so that nearly all the land in the United States worth having should 
fall into the hands of land monopolists, and now, if the devil 
has not lost his cunning, the United States will go back into bar- 
barism yet.' Cheers rang out, the chains rattled, thunders rolled, 
lightning flashed, and all hell seemed writhing in flames. 

" Order was soon restored, when he continued: — 

" ' Now God released you [addressing me] from hell in answer 
to the prayer of that accursed old nigger, Abe, and gave you 
another chance to embrace Jesus. You failed to do so, for rea- 
sons of your own. I honor you for your good sense, and now it 
is my time to send you back to earth. [Loud applause.] I shall 
send you back as a preacher. I want you to preach in all the 
cities of the earth, beginning at Oakland.' So preparations were 
made for my immediate return to earth, in the service of his 
Satanic majesty. Prior to my arrival a report was circulated that 
a very talented young divine from London would preach in such 
a church on a certain Sunday. 

"Well," I asked, "how did you promote the interest of the 
devil by such a sermon ? " 

" Mankind are responsible for every word of truth they hear. 
If they allow truth to take root in their hearts, then they are 
blessed and made happy by it. If not raised up by the reception 
of truth and brought into a better life, it stands against them all 
along the journey of life. He hardens his heart against this 
truth, and against that, day after day, through his whole life. At 
the last day they all rise up and he sees them standing there, and 
he says, ' Oh, miserable man, how did I make such mistakes ? 
Now I see I have chosen to fix my own destiny. I did not 
choose Christ as my portion, and will now have to spend an 
eternity in making mistakes. I rejected the truth, and now I 
shall always be rejecting it.' " 

Where do you preach next ? " 

" In Church to-morrow, in San Francisco. Here, Billy, 

is a check for $i,ooo. Honor me by your presence every time L 
preach. I am anxious to have the press in attendance when I 



22 Satan's Court. 

preach. My sermon has been telegraphed all over the land. I 
know you are poor, but I have orders from the devil to put just 
as many such men as you are to work as soon as possible." 

" Well," said I, " my dear friend, I don't understand you. 
You put me in surroundings where the senses are all captivated; 
you make me drunk; you give me $i,ooo and then boldly an- 
nounce that you have orders to put me to work for the devil, 
your master." 

I smelled brimstone burning, and heard the clanking of 
chains. A great ugly worm dropped from the ceiling upon the 
table. It was the worm that dieth not. Singleton and the 
women laughed loud and long. Their laughter was echoed from 
interminable dungeons. I said to Singleton, " Is this hell ? " 
He answered, "Yes." I said, " God have mercy in the name of 
Jesus." In a moment all was quiet and my fears were dispelled. 
I moved to throw the worm off the table and kill it, but he re- 
strained me. *' You kill that worm and countless thousands will 
spring from its remains. They live on the heart-strings of the 
people; they get fastened on around the heart in this life; they 
gnaw and eat and fatten, and never, never, never let go in time 
nor eternity. All the world over they abound, and he who fails 
to get rid of them in life carries a multitude of them throughout 
the vast cycles of eternity." 

" Why, how do they get rid of them ? " 

" By calling on the name of Jesus. He said he would be 
found of all those who called upon him, even though he be afar 
off." 

I dropped on my knees, and, with throbbing heart, said, " I 
thank God for Jesus Christ, thy son, whose blood cleanseth me, 
even me." 

In a moment the room was cleared of the women and the 
feast. 

I said, "Here, Singleton, take back this check; it has worms 
on it and I won't have it." 

" Why, said he, " I do not want you to change your business. 
You are doing God's work, but my master is reaping the benefit 
of it." 

"Why," said I, " how is that? " 



Satan's Court. 23 

" Well, you are old, and poor, and decrepit, perhaps hungry 
and in need of medicine. You approach a very fine residence 
and ring the bell. A lady in rich attire opens the door. You 
say at once, 'I am working for the Prohibitionist.'' She says, 
'We don't read it,' and shuts the door. There is a worm in that 
woman's heart. Already is ringing in her ears, ' For I was hun- 
gered, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no 
drink; was in prison, and ye visited me not.' You go to a Chris- 
tian with rich surroundings and present your cause. He says, 
*I have all the papers that I can carry or read. I am doing all I 
can for prohibition and the church.' He does not say, 'Here, 
lose no time with me; take a dollar or two and send me the paper. 
I can give it to somebody, if I don't read it.' You slowly take 
your departure. That man has a worm. He hears deep down 
in his heart the voice of the meek and lowly one, ' Inasmuch as 
ye did it not to one of the least of these ye did it not to me. Go 
away into everlasting punishment.' On the other hand, he who 
with open arms receives and invites you in to rest, hospitality 
beaming on his features, and who says, 'Yes, your work is God's 
work; how much is your paper.? $2.00; that is high.' 'Well,' 
you say, 'We issue 5,000 copies a week. Our subscription is 400. 
The 4,600 we give away whenever we can find a man to read 
it.' 'All right; here is your $2.00. God bless you. Amen.' 
You wring his hand, take your departure, and leave that man with 
a voice singing in his heart these words, ' I was a stranger, and ye 
took me in; I was naked, and ye clothed me; sick and in prison, 
and ye visited me.' Now, Billy, how many have you visited 
since your arrival?" 

"About a thousand." 

"Well, I suppose you have left a worm in the hearts of 990. 
If you won't take the check I will manage to see you and keep 
your wants supplied. But it is to the devil's interest that you 
should be in want, that you should let your wants be known, that 
they should positively refuse to relieve you; If they do not go 
out and hunt up the want and relieve it, they will get the worm 

that never dieth in their hearts. I preach to-morrow in 

Church. Hark! Do you hear that? His majesty summons me 
to his presence. Come and go with me; I will bring you back 
safe." 



24 Satan's Court. 

He caught me in his arms and before I could remonstrate 
we were in an intolerable cold region. 

"We are passing the North Pole now, Billy." 

It all of a sudden got hot. 

"We have now entered hell. You see the crust of the earth 
is only about four miles thick, and all inside is hollow. In this 
place the devil holds his court. We will go slow now, so that I 
can explain what we see. The lesson learned will be invaluable 
to you in the world in which you live. There are the people 
whom Noah preached to. They are as happy as barbarians 
are in your world. An opportunity lost follows a man through 
vast eternity. They were not bad people and are not much pun- 
ished. They lead, you see, the same kind of lives they led on 
earth. There are all the vast heathen nations of ancient and 
modern times, in fair hunting-grounds. Here are all the tribes of 
Israel after Moses' time and up to the coming of Christ. Op- 
portunity improved made for those people the character that 
qualified them for Heaven. The same opportunity slighted put 
them into a hell a degree hotter than barbarism. Jesus provided 
a great salvation, the bare neglect of which was sufficient to con- 
sign men to torment. I was full of the salvation of Jesus. I 
was good to everybody. The condition of 300 negroes was 
greatly elevated and blessed by me. A large number of white 
men, women, and children knew where to get corn at my crib. 
They cultivated my land without paying rent. My forefathers 
had been followers of the meek and lowly, and I inherited very 
large veneration and benevolence. I committed only one sin, 
and that was the neglect of so great a salvation. If I had got 
out of that battle alive, I would have embraced Jesus and 
preached to the soldiers, but procrastination made me put it off just 
a little too long, and I got shot. You see that vast army of well- 
dressed men, cultured and well educated? What would you sup- 
pose was their calling.-^ They are preachers and priests. They 
were pretty good men, representing all generations from Christ 
to the present. God says, *Son, give me thine heart.' These 
preachers did not do it, and here they are, preaching forever, just 
as they did on earth. Their incessant preaching gets to be an 
intolerable punishment and they realize the terrible mockery in 



Satan's Court. 25 

their hearts. But now we come to a vast multitude engaged in 
accumulating vast quantities of a filthy stuff they imagined was 
money. They gathered on and on, looking enviously on each 
other's piles, trading, trading. Their punishment was terrible. 
The drunkard was classed with a vast multitude of lunatics. The 
manufacturers and venders of alcohol came last. They were in 
a vast field where a plant grew about as high as their heads. It 
was the color of a flame of fire. A smoke that smelled of brim- 
stone went up from it. Its name was want. They ate it raven- 
ously, their cheeks bulged out and hung down. Their paunches 
almost dragged the ground. There they fed on this plant, gather- 
ing it in from both sides and cramming it into their insatiable maw. 
A burning thirst consumed them, while a beautiful clear stream 
seemed to flow at their feet. Its rippling music made them go 
wild with want. 

Said I, "Singleton, take me back to earth." 

" Oh, we have come to attend a grand council, and here we 
are." 

We were in the presence of his majesty, the devil. He called 
all the vast multitude to order. He thundered reports from the 
world. Everything from Europe, Asia, and Africa was all that 
could be desired. In South America and Mexico the feudal land 
system had fixed everything permanently as well as could be de- 
sired. But the great contest was in the United States. In that 
country was the commencement of the grandest struggle the world 
had ever witnessed. One billion dollars in whisky — the industry 
of a million men. Land and railroad monopoly was now king. 

His majesty arose and said, "My allies and friends," bowing 
low (he was as polite as the ladies and gentlemen of Oakland), 
"the whisky business is doing splendid work for me. Land monop- 
oly is on our side. We are flooding the country with a pauper 
immigration from Europe, which has already greatly lowered the 
general level of civilization. In several States we have repealed 
the Sunday law, but the best stroke ever made is to come. We 
have succeeded in banishing the Bible from the public schools all 
over the land. I never could do anything with a man who read 
the Bible in his school-boy days. Another very prominent feature 
is this: The preachers are very learned and eloquent, and describe, 



26 Satan's Court. 

in most eloquent terms, the goodness and love of God, but never 
say a word about me or hell. They do not honor me with a 
thought; but don't I wake them up when God, in his wrath for 
their failure to declare the truth, says, ' Depart ye cursed.' They 
do not want such men in Heaven, and I don't want them here, 
and I would be very glad to give them a supply of fire and brim- 
stone with which to start a little hell of their own. They would 
try to burn each other up. See them, how they are preaching 
now. All denominations are there firing away at each other. 
Singleton Howell, I make you chief of the American delegation. 
Homes in that country are my greatest enemies and Heaven's 
strongest ally. Now whisky, alcohol, is our best friend, for we 
cannot attack these homes with any other weapon. Get a man to 
dram drinking, and then, when under the influence of drink, start a 
horse race or a game of cards. Loan him money and make him 
think that he is the smartest man in the world. By and by, as a 
matter of business, take a mortgage on his farm, and then the home 
is broken up, and he and his wife and children belong to me. The 
man who buys a farm becomes a land monopolist, and wants more 
and more, and through greed I shall get him. You must preach in 
all the cities and towns of California. Dwell particularly in praise 
of the rich State and liberal people. They would swallow a lie in 
that line backward, if they had to do it against scales as big as those 
on my back. Look at them. I can make them happy by calling 
them rich and liberal even here in hell. They all come here on 
account of their greed. In your sermons elevate the wine interest. 
That is our best friend. I will ruin all California's fairest homes yet. 
Oratory is better than gold. Let it be known that you are from 
London; that you had been traveling on the continent for the 
last four years, carefully arranging statistics in reference to tem- 
perance, and that, according to the best accounts, there was 
almost no drunkenness in those countries where wine was cheap 
and abundant, and that no crime in such countries was traceable 
to drunkenness; that Jesus of Nazareth had made wine, and that 
it was just as much a blessing as flour made from wheat, or cloth- 
ing made from cotton. I will send out i,ooo servants, who are 
t9 report to you, and you will give them such orders as you think 
best. Remember that habit makes character, and that character 



Satan's Court. 2T 

fixes destiny. Get every man to join the church. But here I 
give you a lotion called ' Secure, now, safe. No use to do any 
more; I belong to the church.' Above all, waste no time. I 
have studied man for six thousand years. There are large num- 
bers of men and women in the world who, when converted, 
turned right away from their sins and have since honestly taken 
all pains possible to know their duty to God, to country, to family, 
and to society. God leads such people. Just let them alone; it 
is time thrown away to fool with them. Their hearts are full of 
love to God and man. They are modest, unassuming, tender- 
hearted, always abounding in works of charity and love. They 
are perfectly saved and perfectly kept by the power of God's love 
shed abroad in their hearts. Lose no time with such people. 
Old Abe was just such a man. He did all the good possible in 
the world. When he was called over to the other side, not less 
than a thousand people met him on Jordan's banks. They had 
been recipients of his favors in the world. When he arrived in 
sight of the Lamb he fell down and worshiped away off, but 
angels surrounded him, lifted him up, and bore him to the side of 
the risen Saviour. Don't bother such men. You will have plenty 
to do. In all the churches you will find preachers who are long- 
winded, and who talk and preach a great deal. Encourage them. 
Flatter them. Make them think that every time they open their 
mouth fountains of wisdom uninterruptedly flow. They will soon 
kill any church, and then a dose or two of the lotion, which you 
must never be without, will put a whole church to sleep. Then 
there is a class of long-faced, speech-making old men and women 
in every church. Take a great deal of pains with them. Stimu- 
late their avarice. Put good sound arguments into their minds 
against ever doing an act of charity; and in case they should give 
of their abundance a little to some poor woman, make them boast 
of it till they tire their neighbors to death. In every meeting 
make them take all the time. Always be stimulating the self- 
esteem of such. Make them think their presence is absolutely 
necessary at every testimony meeting. Then induce two or three 
to get up and take all the time, and keep such always in the way 
of young convert's testimony. If they testify, by all means make 
them testify of crooked paths and shortcomings. That is testify- 



28 Satan's Court. 

ing for us. Don't ever let any man or woman get up and say, * I 
am trusting in Jesus and am glad to know when I am in the line 
of intelligent duty, for God puts in my heart the sweetest happi- 
ness when I, in his name, discharge my duty.' Crowd such out 
with the long-winded talking old men and women. Then there is 
the Salvation Army and holiness bands, who throw precious pearls 
before swine. Just let them alone; they are doing us no harm. 
They may get to Heaven themselves, and I think they will. At 
least I don't want them here. They have money, and say it is the 
Lord's, but they seem to think it is a great deal better for them to 
keep it for the Lord than to invest it in his name. Then there is 
in all the towns and cities a vast army of poor. Make them dissat- 
isfied. Keep them away from churches on account of their clothes. 
They are generally better educated and more refined than their 
rich neighbors and would enjoy the sermon and the worship, but 
they can barely keep soul and body together, much less decently 
go to chnrch. Put cankering envy in their hearts. Fill their 
mouths with useless complaints. Keep in mind character is what 
we want. Every man, woman and child is engaged in making 
the character which must live forever." 

God is in the world at every single point, and has always 
been just the same as he was when he made it, and is always 
ready to lead man into a new life. God put into man a little of 
himself, when he made him, and it was that which became alien- 
ated by disobedience. That part of man will never die. If it 
commences an obedient trusting life in this world, it will be led 
out in a beautiful life, fit to live with God and the angels forever. 
If it does not yield obedience, then it is ours; make it useful. 
Then there is another class, the rich and well-to-do, of whom 
there are vast numbers in San Francisco and Oakland. Fifty or 
one hundred of that class arrive every day. There is one now, 
a finely dressed lady, in a splendid buggy drawn by a noble look- 
ing horse. A scroll is in front of the buggy on which is written 
in large letters, " Judgment is sure. My judgment will overtake 
thee." A fortune of $50,000, well invested, yielding an income 
of $6,000 per annum. A church letter from the M. E. Church 
of Oakland certifying that she was an acceptable member of the 
church. She had a fine house and grounds. In youth she gave 



Satan's Court. 29 

her heart to God and was very happy; but she gradually allowed 
selfishness and pride and vanity to absorb her every thought. 
There they stood condemning her; all the truth scorned that she 
had ever heard stood in mourning by her side. She had her 
money all along with her, crushing her soul. Here were a hundred 
women pleading for washing, the very hardest drudgery, to keep 
starvation from their children, surrounding her buggy. No; John 
Chinaman does my washing, and does it well and cheaply; I can- 
not change. In the twenty years of her womanhood a hundred 
tramps had begged a scrap at her door. There was nothing 
cooked, not a scrap. 

An asthmatic old man had asked a subscription for the Pro- 
hibitionist. No; I cannot afford it. There his ghost was appear- 
ing, saying. Opportunity lost. The worms in her heart made her ut- 
ter the most heart-rending moans. Want stalking abroad in Oak- 
land. Poor, destitute women walk the streets all night without 
shelter, cold and hungry. Many had looked to God through Jesus, 
and their sins, which were many, were all blotted out. The ghost 
of every one of these stood by her buggy, and on their bodies 
was written, " Ye did it not unto one of the least of these." 

"Oh," said she, "too late, too late!" in reply to a voice she 
had heard ten thousand times in life, which said, " Son, give me 
thine heart." The cry would go up forever, "Too late, too late." 
She looked over and saw me and knew me, and said, " I saw you 
in Oakland. You are not as I am, dead, and your judgment along 
with you; you yet Hve. Tell every one in Oakland that 'Habit 
makes character and character fixes destiny,' as Mr. Dunn often 
said. Tell them that the first step is to get rooted in the vine, the 
true vine, and then, oh, such beautiful clusters of fruit gather around 
the vine, as they travel through life, which live forever. Tell them 
not to lose an opportunity of doing good; if they do, it makes a 
worm, that grows up before their eyes, and is named after the op- 
portunity lost, and which never dies. And they bring all their 
money with them, and that which was called for by some suffer- 
ing one on earth is put in a sack and hung around their neck, 
marked with the lost opportunity, in letters of fire. Now, sup- 
pose one has a $50,000 fortune and $5,000 income saved for 
twenty years as I had, and an opportunity of doing good that 



30 Satan's Court. 

would have used it all. True I did no harm; I was a lady of 
fashion; but alas, alas! here I am, here I am, unutterably miser- 
able forever, forever, on account of opportunity lost!" 

While this panorama was going on before my eyes, the devil 
had ordered a grand feast. The tables extended from pole to pole 
right through the earth; everything that the mind was capable of 
thinking about was there; but the worm that never dieth was in 
everything. All were seated, I with the others, but I did not eat. 
I was pressed to drink of the wine or brandy, but I declined. 
They strained all the worms out and offered me a glass of nectar 
a thousand years old, but I would not. They feasted and drank 
till they were all drunk; large numbers were under the table. The 
table was cleaned off in an instant. "Toasts and speeches are 
now in order, said his majesty." 

Singleton Howell arose with his glass filled to the brim. 
Said the devil, " Fill your glasses to drink to Mr. Howell's toast. 
He is my most honored subject on account of being the first man 
who ever came here voluntarily. Here's to the health of the 
reverend Mr. Thomas." Mr. Thomas arose and said: "Your 
majesty and fellow subjects, I was born in the good old State of 
Missouri. My father and mother were old hardshell Baptists. I 
was raised up in that faith (I don't believe I ought to be here). 
I joined the Baptist Church (the old side) by experience. My 
experience was this, and it was sufficient. I told them that I had 
given myself to God; to his service as long as I lived; and by the 
.authority of God's word I was his child as soon as I went down 
into the water and was immersed, or baptized, in the name of the 
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Well, I was soon after licensed 
to preach. I baptized a great number into the church. I did all 
I could for God and the church. I worked hard all the week, 
made money, preached on Sunday, and was very happy in the 
service of God. I gave cheerfully and largely of my money, and 
oh, I do wish I had died before I was forty years old, in Missouri! 
At twenty-two I married a well made, beautiful woman. We 
had, in Missouri, twelve children, in twenty years. In 1849 we 
immigrated to California. Oh, what a mistake ! We arrived in 
Hangtown with five wagons and teams and one hundred head of 
loose cattle and twenty-five good horses and mules, in September, 



Satan's Court. 31 

1849. I had about a thousand dollars. I built a log house in 
Hangtown, put my family into it, and with my team made a trip 
to Sacramento. There I bought supplies of provisions and a 
barrel of whisky. My father always kept it and I had. When I 
drove up to my door in Hangtown, my oldest son met me at the 
door and said, ' Dad, did you bring any whisky ? ' 'Yes,' said I. 
' Well,' said he, ' there ain't none in this town. It is worth fifty 
cents a drink. There are a hundred men here waiting for you. 
' Old Thomas has whisky,' yelled half a dozen voices. ' I bought 
it for my own use, boys.' * Here is fifty cents; give me a drink . 
I drew it for him; he said, ' take a pinch of that gold-dust. I 
kept on drawing that whisky, till it was all gone. I weighed my 
gold-dust, and the barrel brought me $2,000. The boys had sold 
my provisions and tools for $2,000 more. You see I made 
$3,000 clear on the trip. I immediately made another trip, re- 
turning in four days. Other teams had arrived with provisions, 
tools, and whisky; and so I started a hotel and bar. Well, I 
rented ten tables at $10.00 a day each to gamblers, to play on. 
I built a large cloth house for a hotel. No man ever came along 
in those days asking for a miner's outfit but what he got it, money 
or no money. There was three or four hundred of my old neigh- 
bors and neighbor's sons in my neighborhood. They came in and 
weighed their dust on my scales every night. The diggings were 
rich and they took out vast quantities of gold. My receipts were 
$1,000 per day. My old neighbors drank and gambled. I wondered 
at it, for I did not. A great many of my old friends had left their 
families in great distress, in order that they might get an outfit, 
promising to send back money as fast as they earned it. But 
they drank their money up at my bar, or gambled it off in my 
house. I was thoroughly disgusted with them, and when they 
would come in Saturday night and drink all night and spend 
their money, and carouse all day Sunday, I soon got to throwing 
them out and driving them ofi". I was big and strong, and the 
more I threw out the more 1 wanted to. Well, I made money 
very fast. I put up a very large gambling hall. It was filled 
night and day. I owned an interest in several tables, having 
furnished the house, tables, and banking capital. 

" My old Brother Smith, a good Baptist preacher, struck a 



32 Satan's Coort. 

rich pocket and took out $10,000. His family was exceedingly 
destitute. He came into the store, his countenance all lit up, 
thanking God for his good luck. He treated and I treated. He 
commenced bragging on his skill as a miner, and I praised him. 
He treated, and, finally losing all caution, commenced gambling. 
He drank and gambled until he lost all, at one of my banks. I 
was mad at him and abused him. He took it all for a day or 
two, begging whisky and his meals, till I finally threw him out of 
the door. I did that to a great many, fifty or seventy-five, in the 
next two years. Well, one day in a great row, I got shot dead. 
At that time I had $200,000 or more. Well, I started to Judg- 
ment. I thought I was sure of Heaven. I had preached and 
baptized. My doctrine, once a child of God, always, came into 
my mind. True, I had not prayed for two years. I was too busy; 
I had given good advice every day to my old neighbors: it was 
none of my business if they did not take it. Well, when I started, 
it looked to me as if an army of men, women, and children 
clustered around me and went with me. 

" Here was Brother Smith and an aged father and mother, 
and a large family. Brother Smith had never saved a dollar since 
I had robbed him at my bar and bank. The starving family 
with all their suffering, had written in letters of fire, ' Woe unto 
him who putteth the cup to his neighbor's lip.' A thousand men 
who looked like starved shadows had these words written all over 
them. Slaves forever to whisky. You ruined me, pointing a 
long bony finger into my eye. My gold was around my neck. 
I imagined I could see in my gold the faces of hundreds of my 
old neighbors' women and children. You ruined my husband, 
or father, and got his money. I thought I could argue or bribe 
my way into Heaven, on account of my religious baptism. I was 
the most responsible and respectable man in Hangtown. My 
name was good at the bank for any amount. Sc I knocked at 
the door. St. Peter opened it. Said he, ' What do you want ? 
Who are you ? ' 

" * I am Brother Thomas who was converted and baptized 
twenty-four years ago on Spring River, Missouri.' 

" Said he, ' Look at all that gold.' I did not want to do 
that, for I knew that I had not given value received for one cent 



Satan's Court. 33 

of it. I had got it all for alcohol, and tobacco, strychnine, and 
other poisons called whisky. Said he, ' Look at itP At this com- 
mand I was obliged to do so, and there, in letters of fire, were 
the words, 'Robber, murderer, lying thief, whoremonger.' Said 
he, 'What is written of such?' 

"'They shall be cast into outer darkness,'" said I. 'Out of 
thine own mouth will I judge thee.' Well, I believed, had faith, 
and was baptized.' 

"' Believed,' said he, 'can a man have such a terrible array 
against him as that, and believe? What do the Scriptures say of 
him who says he believes, and does not obey ? ' 

" ' He is a liar, and the truth is not in him.' 

" He slammed the door in my face and I fell back fainting. 
When I recovered consciousness, I was in somebody's arms. I 
thought I was in Abraham's bosom and lay there one moment 
deliciously happy. A voice said, ' Bring those red hot tongs and 
pull his toe nails off. That will bring him to.' I opened my eyes 
and found myself in the devil's arms. 

" ' Oh! ' said he, ' my preacher tried to fool somebody! Did 
you try to fool St. Peter ? ' 

" ' You never fooled anybody but once, then you fooled old 
Brother Thomas. When you sold whisky, you said 'Well, if I 
don't do it somebody will; I might as well do it as anybody.' 
Every drink you sold made you a meaner man; made the dis- 
tance between you and God and goodness greater and greater, 
until you finally got to be meaner than I, the prince of liars. 
You will keep on fooling yourself forever. ' " 

I had known Brother Thomas in youth, and was very sorry 
for him. He told me to tell his boys to stop their wicked ways 
and serve God. Here the beautiful woman came to me with a 
glass of clear, sparkling wine to drink. My old appetite was 
about to convince me that I could do so, and keep it concealed, 
when I said, " God have mercy and save me for Jesus' sake," and 
I awoke. 

On awaking I commenced and immediately wrote my dream. 
I canvassed uninterruptedly two or three days for the Prohibition- 
ist^ returning to my room supperless. The question came up» 
What are you working for ? Is it God's work you are in, or is it 
3 



34 Satan's Court. 

of the devil, or is it a selfish aim ? In answer, I say, I am one 
of a vast army of men, women, and children whose lives have 
been wrecked by whisky, and I want to see the time when it wiU 
be impossible for poor people to get it. 

If we can get the United States constitutional prohibition 
and State constitutional prohibition, there will still be some whisky 
sold and drank. It cannot be thoroughly enforced any more than 
the law against stealing. There is a law everywhere against 
stealing; men break it everywhere and steal. Sometimes they 
are punished and sometimes they are not. The prohibition law 
can be enforced as well as that, and it will be as effectual as the 
law against stealing. Is it practicable ? I believe it is. There 
are enough prohibitionists to-day to carry it, but they are not 
organized. The Republican and Democratic Party cry, we swal- 
low up the whole people; there is no room for a third party. 

I believe if we divide the Republican Party in the North and 
the Democratic Party in the South, the Prohibitionist is the 
party that will make a young giant who will fashion all things anew. 
So I decided. It is God's work. It is eminently practicable and 
an answer to the last question. It is as nearly unselfish in its pur- 
poses as any work in which men ever engage. If I keep in this 
work for God and prohibition, I am saved. If I engage in any- 
thing else, temptation to drink will sooner or later result in my down- 
fall and ruin. With these reflections I fell asleep and again 
dreamed. At first strange faces and forms, penniless and weak, 
canvassing all day for my paper. Should I give it up and go to 
some better paying business ? Old Abe and Singleton appeared 
alternately, first cheering words from old Abe, " Strike on, Massa 
William, right in the same place, the rock will break bye and bye 
clear through and through." Then Singleton would say, " You 
are a fool, there are a hundred agencies in San Francisco that 
would pay you better than this. Give it up. Make a little money 
to keep you from starving and then commence work on this. 
There are thousands of people here with great wealth, who do 
not think that the cold grave ever awaits them. Minister to their 
greed or selfish desires, or vanity; make yourself useful to their 
senses, like Bob IngersoU. Flatter their vanity and they will bless 
you and pay you. You are engaged in a work of truth which makes 



Satan's Court. 35 

them see themselves as they are. Now they will curse and rob 
you in return. 

" One of their sons is at twenty-one years of age a splendid 
scholar, and with a large fortune started out in the world, without 
one single interest in common with the vast masses around him. 
Do you think that son has been favored by the seeming good 
fortune which has fallen to his lot ? Is it possible, in the nature 
of things, for him to embrace the salvation of the meek and lowly 
Jesus ? In his drives every day he sees thousands of struggling 
young and old men and women, terrible poverty making their lives 
an incessant battle to keep the wolf from the door. If he says 
anything it is, ' Am I my brother's keeper.' He takes a cold. 
The physicians can do him no good; brain fever hurries him to 
an early grave. Alone he crosses the dark river. He stands on 
the other shore; the shore of vast eternity. He has, strange to 
say, all his money; it is a witness against him. The thousand 
wants which he ought to have relieved are there. The truth, 
slighted and scoffed, as it fell on a thousand occasions, stands 
there. Neglected salvation through Jesus all there. 

" ' Lost, lost! ' he cries as he views the terrible witnesses 
against him. He hurries to the presence of the devil. As he 
approaches, he sees his mother, the fine lady mentioned in the 
other dream. ' Oh mother! you never told me of Jesus and his 
wounds for our sake. You were in love with glitter and show and 
gold. Now in these scenes we are to live forever! Cruel, cruel 
fate!'" 

Old Abe put in an appearance, and Singleton left. Said he, 
" You are writing down your dreams. Facts are stranger than 
fiction. The Scripture says the sins of the father shall be visited 
upon the children, even down to the fourth generation; on the 
other hand, the promise of God is to you and your children. 

"A young man arrives in Hangtown in the fall of 1849, pen. 
niless. He has a blanket and a worn old Bible and song book. 
He passes his first night under a tree. By the light of his fire he 
reads an hour or two in his Bible before retiring. He then sings 
in loud, clear, ringing tones, a good old hymn; kneeling, he opens 
his heart to God in prayer and praise, and asks his blessing on his 
work in the new country. He rolls himself 




36 Satan's Court. 

and sleeps very sweetly. With early dawn he rises, builds a fire, 
reads a chapter and sings a hymn of praise, and again kneels and 
prays. When he arises he is confronted by another young man. 
' Thomas Dunn is my name,' said the new comer. ' James Ross 
is mine,' shaking hands. Thomas said, ' I heard you singing 
that dear old hymn, my mother's, in Ohio, and I came to your 
camp to get acquainted. 

" Said James, ' I am glad to know you but I have no grub to 
offer you a bite.' 

" ' Well,' said Thomas, ' come to my camp. I want a partner. 
I have a claim and mining outfit and will divide.' 

" ' Thank God,' said James. 

" Their claim was a good one. They prayed, as they had 
been taught, and worked hard. Their habits were regular and 
God greatly blessed their labors.* They were foremost in every 
work of charity, visiting and comforting the sick and afflicted. 
They rapidly acquired a very large fortune, notwithstanding their 
munificent charities. After relieving the wants of friends back 
East, at the end of two years they weighed their dust and found 
that each had $t 00,000 in gold. Their hearts went out in thanks- 
giving to God. For five generations their forefathers had been 
pious. They had often heard of the beautiful valleys around the 
bay. They gave up mining. Each had graduated as a law student 
before coining to California. When they arrived at the bay, in 
the fall of 185 1, the whole talk was about jumping land. The 
valleys were covered with Spanish land grants. An old Mexican 
was in the city endeavoring to sell a grant of eleven leagues. He 
wildly cursed the Americans. He said he had a perfect title, hav- 
ing lived on the land forty years, and that the Americans had 
jumped every rod of it. He would sell the whole tract for $20,- 
000. James Ross looked at the title, saw that it was perfect from 
the Mexican Government, found the records all right, and said, 
' I will give it.' He notified the squatters of the transaction. 
They laughed at him, and threatened to lynch him. They all 
improved their farms the same as though there was no Spanish 
grant. In 1854 it was confirmed by the commissioners and by 
all the courts. The squatters were intelligent. A large town 
had sprung up in the center of the grant. The squatters were 



Satan's Court. 37 

prosperous. North, south, east, and west the courts were eject- 
ing squatters. James Ross quietly watched events. He was 
an exhorter, and held meetings in the school houses which had 
been erected by the squatters. They well understood that he 
could eject them by law. They also knew that a law firm in San 
Francisco would have bought the grant from the old Mexican in 
a day if Ross had not completed the trade, and that the law firm 
would have ejected them by due process of law as soon as pos- 
sible thereafter. 

" In June, 1854, he summoned the squatters to meet him in 
a certain town that had sprung up on the grant, in reference to 
their homes. There were nearly a thousand persons present. 
There were 400 homes on the grant. Ross read a letter from 
Eugene Casserly, representing a law firm in the city, offering him 
seven dollars an acre for the entire grant. They owned a grant 
joining it, stocked with cattle, and needed more land. ' But,' 
said he, ' I recognize one fact, and that is that every one of you 
will be ejected from the land at once, and will have to leave your 
improvements, which are considerable. I have to give an account 
to God for everything I do. I own the land, bought it and paid 
for it, and have a right to sell it legally, but I hold myself amena- 
ble to a higher law. You are in the condition that God intended 
all men to be, and that is the home condition. In the beginning 
he made just so many facts or laws, and men are happy in pro- 
portion to the number of facts discovered and practiced. In 
thousands of countries and districts in the United States the land 
has been divided up and the home condition established, result- 
ing in the rapid development of the resources of the section so 
settled. And, what was better, they always, without fail, built up 
a superior manhood. I have studied this question in all its bear- 
ings. If I sell this land to Casserly & Co., they will immediately 
put 400 homes in mourning. You will all be involved in law. 
Lawyers will fleece you. A miserable life for all of you will com- 
mence. When you are ejected, there will be no place for you to 
go. You will scatter out into the different towns, which are al- 
ready too full. Your manhood will be reduced to a lower level, 
and your wives and children will at once feel the deterioration 
A man with a home is the better the moment he comes in pos- 



38 Satan's Court. 

session of it. The nation is stronger the moment he comes in 
possession of it. The State, county, and district are all the bet- 
ter and stronger by the fact that he has it. On the other hand, 
the man and his family are infinitely lowered the moment he is, 
by any means, deprived of a home. If he sells it and gets the 
money, the effect of his losing his home is the same. The nation. 
State, county, and district are all injured. If it is so with one 
man, then how much will be the damage to the body politic in 
case of the dispossession of 400 families ? ' Said he, continuing, 
* If you want your homes, appoint a committee of five to draw up 
the terms upon which you would like to buy ? ' 

" The committee in due time reported that they were willing 
to pay $10.00 per acre for the land, payments to be made in one, 
two, three, and four years, with mortgages on the land duly exe- 
cuted and recorded as security. Interest at two per cent, per 
month until paid. 

" ' Now,' said Ross, after all the papers were drawn up and 
signed, ' I want to make a speech. You are in the best climate 
in the world, a fine rich soil, and each one of you are at peace 
with all the world. You have beautiful homes. No man can es- 
timate the value of these homes. They are yours. All modern 
progress rests upon the home power. That country without 
homes maintains law and order at a fearful cost. In fact, liberty 
lives nowhere without homes. One home is worth a hundred 
soldiers in the maintenance of law and order. God made the land 
for homes, and they are of vital importance to your happiness. 
Water is not more valuable to man's physical life than homes are 
to his moral life. All other countries on the earth but ours have 
standing armies, and when the time comes that the homes are aU 
absorbed by the larger, which I very much fear is approaching, 
then we will have standing armies maintained at a fearful expense 
in money and morals. Your homes have a mortal enemy. Sup- 
pose an army with banners, guns, and ammunition were to at- 
tempt to quarter itself upon you, burn your fences, insult your 
wives, force contributions of provender, flour, hogs, poultry, but- 
ter, and eggs, you could organize, appoint your officers, procure 
war material, meet the enemy, and perchance drive him from 
your midst. If not, sacrifice your lives on the field of honor in 



Satan's Court. 39 

the attempt. The enemy I speak of is worse than an army. 
That enemy's name is whisky. It is the enemy of homes every- 
where. If you do not pay me for your lands it will be whisky. 
I will take your land back at cost for land and improvements at 
any time. I know you have a fine bargain.' 

"The land rapidly increased in value. In 1855 the assessor 
valued wild lands at fifty cents an acre. An eleven-league grant 
joining the Ross tract, covered with wild cattle, only paid taxes 
on $50,000, everything counted. It was wild land. The Ross 
tract was valued by the same assessor, who had been elected in 
the interest of land monopoly, at $15.00 per acre. 

The 50,000 acres, at $15.00 per acre _ - $750,000 

Four hundred houses, barns, corrals, etc 400,000 

Every farmer had some fencing 400,000 

The wagons, teams, tools, etc. 500,000 

$2,050,000 
Or about twenty times as much taxes paid by the Ross tract 
as that just like it but in the hands of one man. The man who 
owned the big ranch traveled in Europe, and of course spent his 
income there. The settlers on the Ross tract lined the roads with 
wagon loads of grain, hay, and poultry. They marketed immense 
quantities of beef, pork, mutton, and horses. They were buyers 
of newspapers, music, books, etc. Immense quantities of dry 
goods, groceries, teas, silks, shoes, and every merchantable article 
found cash buyers among the homes on the Ross tract. 

" Is the city of San Francisco interested in the breaking up 
of land monopolies ? Is there a tax-paying interest in the State 
but what is injured by it ? Have not land monopolists from the 
earliest period of the State's history debauched the elective fran- 
chise in behalf of their own interest? I ask, are not the courts, 
the legislative and executive departments of the Government, all a 
living power arrayed in favor of land monopoly and against homes? 
From San Diego to Shasta there is one large tract after another. 
In all the valleys these tracts are large enough for 200 homes. 
An owner of a large tract employs say fifty men on an average. 
Are these men so employed the kind of citizens demanded by a 
great republic, or are they just such as can be used to destroy the 
nation's liberty by debauching the purit;^ of the ballot-box? 



40 Satan's Court. 

There are no school houses on these large grants. There are 
saloons, which levy tribute upon the wages paid the employes. 

"The devil accomplished the finest piece of strategy of his 
life when he argued the United States into annexing Texas. That 
was the cause of the war with Mexico. Through that war we ac- 
quired New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Not but what we 
added many millions to the circulating medium of the world by 
our gold fields in California. Not but what California is the best 
State in the Union naturally. The United States, up to the an- 
nexation of Texas, was engaged in building up manhood. Her 
home condition for 220 or 230 years was precisely that which God 
ordained from the beginning should never fail in building up man- 
hood. If it had not been for that home condition we never could 
have had Washington and his armies, who fought seven years, and 
then, without pay, laid down their arms and resumed the various 
occupations of peace. The splendid pluck, grit, and endurance 
exhibited by the Northern and Southern armies were a result of 
the home power. 

" Now a large portion of our country has culminated, and we 
are on the downward grade much faster than ever we went up. 
A standing army will be absolutely necessary to hold in check the 
wildly throbbing, beating heart of the vast mass of unnecessarily 
poor people who crowd the cities and towns of this State. If the 
lands of the State were divided up into homes, the cities and 
towns might be five times as populous, and not too large for the 
country. In fact, many others would spring up on every large 
grant, two or more towns in addition to what there are. 

*' James Ross, as he entered his buggy to drive to a farmer's 
where he intended to pass the night, was reaching for the lines 
when a drunken man fell heavily under the horse's feet. The 
horse sprang to one side, and, bounding forward, collided with a 
large wagon, capsizing the buggy and throwing James under the 
wheel of a moving freight wagon. It moved right on over his 
heart, instantly crushing the life out of him." 

Abe continued: " Here was a man who had, in early boyhood, 
embraced Jesus. One who had never faltered in his allegiance. 
His head and heart and pocket-book were practically dedicated to 
God every moment. What was the result ? God had made him 



The Old Forty-niner's Story. 41 

wonderfully prosperous in this world's goods. Now, in the prime 
of manhood, he met with a violent death." 

A halo of glory spread over Abe's face as he continued: 
" Without a moment's warning he was on the banks of the dark 
river. He knew that he was in the arms of the Almighty One. 
In a moment they were passing its dark and dangerous flood, and 
were safely landed on the other shore, where was gathered quite a 
multitude, and all shouted, 'Welcome, Brother Ross.' A voice 
more precious, and one that he well knew, said, 'Ye have been 
faithful over a few things; I will make you ruler over many.' 

" I saw him," said Abe, " with the Saviour. The character 
formed on earth was to go on and grow under the immediate eye 
of Jesus through vast eternity. 

" I must not omit to mention the best witness he had. When- 
ever he had been called upon for help in this world, if he did 
not know the merits of the case, he would say, ' In thy name, O 
Lord, this is casting bread upon the waters.' Now, here was the 
harvest, a multitude of the sweetest singing angels to sing heavenly 
songs as Jesus carried him to the mansion prepared for him." 



THB OLD KORTY-NINER'S 
STORY. 



The first I ever heard of California was in the year 1839. 
I was fifteen years old. We lived in the country. I went one night 
on a visit with a boy of my own age (fifteen years) who had a beau- 
tiful sister, with whom I was desperately inlove. It is curious how 
hard a boy's first love goes with him; but the love of the girls has 
been a magnet shaping my whole life. I am sixty, and have ten living 
children. My wife, Mrs. H,, and all the old women look like 
girls to me. Well, I went home with James Boring. That night 
when the old gentleman came in (he owned a plantation and a 
hundred negroes), he opened his mail and there found a letter 
from the Agricultural Department with a table-spoonful of wheat 
that had been raised in California. An old map musty with age 
was sought in order to find where the country was that produced 



42 The Old Forty-niner's Story. 

such round plump wheat. The next I heard was after we moved 
to Missouri. Thomas H. Benton, the great Missouri senator, 
procured the passage of a bill to make an appropriation to pay 
John C. Fremont for organizing a company of a hundred rnen to 
cross the great American desert (there is no desert where that 
was marked) to California and Oregon as topographical engineer. 
His wife, Jessie, Mr. Benton's daughter, wrote a book which had 
a very large sale, composed from Fremont's diary. 

It was thought to be the glory of any administration to ac- 
quire California. When Texas was annexed and war was threat- 
ened, the United States sent around the Horn, under Commodore 
Sloat, a naval squadron with secret instructions. James K. Polk, 
of Tennessee, was president. The councils of the nation were 
in the hands of the South. The South wanted California as a 
splendid area into which they could take their slavery. When 
Texas was admitted a condition was stipulated for a division of 
the State into four additional ones. The fiercest struggle was at 
that time going on to maintain in the Union a balance of power 
in the senate. The Northw^est was rapidly improving and 
European immigration all went North. It feared competition with 
slave labor. 

Sloat was secretly instructed to proceed to the Pacific Coast 
and the moment he heard of war between the United States and 
Mexico to open his instructions. England and France each, with 
the same thing in view, sent naval squadrons to the North Pacific 
with instructions, with or without a pretense, to get a protectorate 
over California. An agent of England had begged General Castro 
at Monterey to allow him to declare an English protectorate, but 
Castro declined, or hesitated a little too long. 

All the aforesaid naval squadrons were in the harbor at 
Mazatlan watching each other. One bright morning about eight 
o'clock, without previous notice, the American Flag-ship with her 
two consorts were observed hoisting their anchors and getting 
ready to set sail. The French squadron commenced to get ready 
to follow the American and watch it; the English slowly follow- 
ing. The American knew exactly where it was going. The other 
two were determined to watch it. Fortunately, when outside, a 
storm separated the fleet. The American arrived in the bay of 
Monterey. 



The Old Forty-niner's Story. 43 

As soon as Commodore Sloat heard from U. S. Consul 
Larkin, of the effort of the English Consul to induce General 
Castro to ask an English protectorate, he at once went ashore and 
hoisted the American flag, issuing a proclamation in accordance 
with the secret instructions he had received. He said that the 
people would not be interfered with in any respect; that the 
same officers would enforce the laws they had always been used 
to; that property would be protected, and any one having the 
sales of title to land would be protected in it. 

Coijimodore Sloat's proclamation had been written for him 
in Washington. That clause binding the Congress to protect 
those having a color of title to land was inserted in the interest of 
slavery. It was right, legally right, for the South to fight for 
slave territory. The death knell of slavery was to confine it. 
New cheap lands made a big demand for slave labor. It has 
always been the custom to denounce the laws of the generations 
preceding as barbarous. All nations have looked back to the bar- 
barous laws and conditions of their ancestors to keep away inves- 
tigation from themselves and their laws. If a man owned a 
hundred negroes, it was to his interest to see that they were 
clothed and fed, the Bible read to those negroes, and the doctrine 
of marriage, and the family, encouraged, for then fewer doctor's 
bills would be necessary for nameless diseases. They also in this 
condition raised more children. Then they were positively, by 
law and public opinion, protected from the whisky seller. It was 
a penitentiary offense to sell a negro whisky. True they had to 
work. The family by law could be broken up. The father sold 
one place, the mother another, and the children another. 

One white man on a ranch in California to-day would do the 
work of three negroes in the South in ante-war days. The com- 
promise of 1820 when Missouri was admitted into the Union gave 
all territory south of 36° 30', to slavery, but it did not settle up 
like the free territory North. Southern Statesmen determined to 
make slave States as fast as free, and California was needed and 
large land grants were to be established all over the State, so as 
to make it impossible for free labor to get a hold. No man who 
held slaves under the law was guilty of breaking any law, human 
or divine. The law was hateful and abominable. The law to 



44 The Old Forty-niner's Story. 

imprison a man for debt was just as bad. The race made by the 
naval squadrons from Mazatlan to Monterey was of the utmost 
importance to the human family. The authorities at Monterey 
would have gladly welcomed the French or English in place of the 
Americans. Texas had just been annexed. Fremont had de- 
fiantly marched through the whole length of the State, and the 
California authority would have gladly thrown itself into French 
or English arms to obtain protection from the embrace of its 
hated enemies, the Americans. Thus you see it was obtained 
first by conquest. Then by the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, 
by purchase. Let us take two bird's eye views of California as it 
it was thus obtained by America from Mexico. 

A splendid eagle enters from the south representing slavery. 
He says all these splendid valleys of rich new lands, already di- 
vided up into large tracts or grants by Mexico is the very thing we 
need for our sons. A splendid State after the order of the 
patriarchs of old has been thrust upon us, almost without the 
asking. This is our natural heritage. x\nother bird, the gentle 
dove, enters from the north. It says: "Homes, splendid herit- 
age! Just as it comes from the hand of a most loving Father, 
intersected by thousands of streams full of fish, its valleys, 
plains, hills and mountains abounding in game. 

This is the cradle of liberty. Homes here will have an area 
in which to build a manhood such as has never been witnessed. 

Alas for human calculations. The great plumedeagleknew 
well that slavery owned American genius, all the offices of 
Government, all the public press. The pulpit of the entire 
South, and nearly that of the entire North gladly prostrated itself 
before the golden image of slavery. Commodore Sloat's procla- 
mation declaring that all in the possession of land, having a 
color of title would be protected, forever binding on the Govern- 
ment just coming into possession. Mexican script was only 25 
cents on the dollar and with that 90 leagues could be bought for 
$100; about 18^ cents an acre. 

The three Hebrew children were again thrown into the fiery 
furnace. If it had been thought that there was the remotest chance for 
this Pacific State to be free soil anywhere in its future it would 
not have been an American State to-day. 



The Old Forty-niner's Story. 45 

The naval squadron would not have been sent to the 
Pacific Coast to look after it. The dove was to be equally disap- 
pointed. It did not know that a new order of things worse 
than slavery ever was, could be devised and incorporated upon a 
new fair State which was so fair to look upon and which pos- 
sessed a promise of a million homes and a superior manhood. 

It was a virgin State. Thousands of herds of wild mustangs, 
with flowing manes and tails, roamed uninterruptedly where now 
grow unlimited fields of wheat and barley. Under the shade of 
the trees which grew on the banks of the rivers and creeks, 
bands of elk, deer and antelope lazily chewed the cud of content- 
ment. 

A death-like calm had not been disturbed for thousands of 
miles, north, south, east, and west. But hark ! what sound is 
that borne upon every breeze that seems to wake the nations? 
All mankind to earth's remotest bound rises with listing ear in- 
tent. 

'Tis not pestilence, cholera, famine, nor war. These dread 
evils are always confined to a small area. Yellow fever may make 
New Orleans quake with fear, cholera might depopulate New 
York and London. Napoleon through wear's terrible calamities 
make Europe put on sack-cloth and ashes and mourn fifty years, 
but all these are local. The world hardly knows anything about 
them when they are happening. Gold had been discovered at 
Sutter's Mill a hundred miles from the bay. For a thousand 
miles along the coast back of the bay of San Francisco, gold in 
large quantities is being dug. This discovery is more powerful 
than the tread of armies. 

The noise of busy preparation to go to these new gold fields 
is more emphatic, and significant and wide-spread than any prep- 
aration for a campaign ever made by military chieftain. 
From every quarter of the civilized earth they come at ter- 
rible cost to life and purse. The rush was so wide-spread, 
frantic, senseless, and unprovided for, that millions fell by the 
way. 

In the first four years from '49 to '52 inclusive, four million 
men started to these shores from every town, city and hamlet on 
the civilized earth. There were no means of travel and a mill- 



46 The Old Forty-niner's Story. 

ion fell by the way. AVhat can there be in gold to so move a 
whole world? Preachers from a hundred thousand pulpits elo- 
quently described the ruin brought upon any people by an inor- 
dinate lust for money. They got down from the sacred desk and 
joined the rush. Doctors forsook a comfortable practice. Law- 
yers threw aside their briefs. Fathers tore themselves away from 
the care of little ones and the fond embrace of tender wives. 

Thousands of love stories were acted out better than any ro- 
mance ever pictured them on paper. College professors threw 
up their professorships. Education, improved mental attainments, 
makes nations, communities and individuals want money. Even 
religion, our holy religion, one of whose tenets is "money is the 
root of all evil," makes us want gold. 

I would not give a cent for that man's religion which allows 
him to sit down and wait for God to feed him. Religion makes 
a man seek for gold to spread God's truth, to feed the hungry, to 
clothe the naked and relieve man's wants. Education makes a 
new want for gold, books, music, art, flowers, luxurious sur- 
roundings, makes a demand for gold such as the same man would 
never have if uneducated. 

They crowded over every available route across the plains, 
wearily pulled themselves up the eastern declivities of the Sierra 
Nevada and dropped down the western slope into what? 

The South sent up a herd of Mexicans, almost as many as the 
Americans. The world sent the largest fleet ever known on the high 
seas freighted with human produce. There were five hundred 
ships at one time in the bay of San Francisco without a sailor. 
This army by the sea met the other across the plains in the grand 
center of attraction, viz., the mines. 

Here were a dozen civilizations, about three million of men 
without law or churches or women, with open, free gambling, 
whisky everywhere, no homes. Gold was in great abundance but 
nothing else. No gardens or farms to supply the miners with 
vegetables or fruits. 

Race hatred and prejudice were often the foundation of severe 
conflicts. All the land divided up into large tracts which would 
soon involve the whole population which had come for homes, 
as many did, in law-suits had not all been settled yet in 1884. 



The Old Forty-niner's Story. 47 

The United States had been engaged in developing a peculiar 
manhood. For 250 years the matter-of-fact, utilitarian manhood 
of a class that looks first to self and self-interest, had been a 
peculiarity of the civilization. Homes, peaceful homes, about 
160 acres in each, surrounded with other homes of the same 
size, hewn out of the forest. The jungle grubbed out, all seeking 
the protection of law without a constabulary and without a stand- 
ing army to enforce order. The children of the United States 
had been accidentally, or led by the hand of God. Some believe 
the former. I had rather accept the latter. They were well fed 
on good meat and bread, vegetables and fruit, and not too much 
schooling, but sufficient for practical purposes. Here I must say 
that in this condition a nation, town, county or settlement is 
always blessed of God. They naturally have faith and feel and 
know collectively and individually that God's blessing is upon 
them. This is the seat of all benevolence. The people knowing 
well that God's blessing was only kept by loving one another, 
it was everywhere considered a solemn mockery for one man to 
advise another to reform or love God when he knew that man 
was in poverty and want. They first relieved a man's wants and 
then said God has given me his great love and pardon and I can- 
not keep that love and see his creatures in want. This made an 
inquirer. If a man gets a sack of meal because God loved the 
donor, he wants to know more about it. It is a new argument 
that has weight. The people of the United States were the most 
religious and benevolent that any civilization had ever developed. 
They were brave and liberal. It is selfishness refined to be 
brave and true and to give God all his due in praise and service. 
The greatest selfishness is to be perfectly unselfish. The greatest 
good a man or woman can do him or herself is to constantly lead 
a life of self-denial and cross bearing. The truth that tells most 
in one's own favor, is to be perfectly true to others. It is not 
only so once or twice, but for a whole life-time. 

Now then, gentle reader, in 1849 there were 35,000,000 of 
improved developed manhood in the United States. From all 
that 35,000,000 manhood, was selected its very best material to 
pour down in the State three million. One million died from the 
many causes while on the way. Thousands of homes had been 



48 The Old Forty-niner's Story. 

mortgaged to raise means to send the best qualified, morally and 
physically. Large numbers of loved ones were never heard from. 
When they landed at the mines, what was their surprise to find 
that all the civilized and semi-civilized nations of the whole world 
were heavily represented on the ground. 

There was no stealing, there was very little crime. Every 
gulch was rich. Gold was more abundant than anything. One 
of the very strangest things was that where there was so much 
gold, there was so much real poverty. Vast numbers were sick with 
chronic diarrhea. There was no means of caring for such, and 
they died. Vast numbers did nothing but prospect. It was im- 
possible for them to settle down to steady work. Everybody 
that traveled had their blankets. Tramp, tramp, everybody 
tramped. The ground under the trees was covered with vermin, 
so many people dropped down in the shade to rest, leaving, in the 
shape of a louse, a testimony that there they had rested. 

What is the proof that the American emigration had a supe- 
rior manhood? First, they were congregated in a thousand 
towns; half the population belonged to other and poorer 
civilizations. All were after gold, the most exciting and ab- 
sorbing chase that ever engaged the attention in one place of so 
vast an assemblage. Of course interests clashed. All were 
armed, whisky was everywhere drunk. A vast majority gambled. 

Judge Lynch established his court in a thousand towns, and 
no court from the foundation of the world ever made so few mis- 
takes. He who committed crime well knew that in case of arrest 
and proof of guilt, punishment would be speedy and certain. In 
opposition to most of the foreign element, Judge Lynch ruled 
with a justice seldom praised enough. 

General Riley, a military governor, without any authority 
of law, in 1849, issued a proclamation appointing a certain day 
for the people to assemble and elect delegates to a convention 
which was to form a State constitution. Where in history does 
any occasion arise for an exhibition of trained manhood such as 
this? In three weeks this disordered mass assembled and held 
an election, and quietly dispersed. 

The delegates assembled and from copies of other State 
constitutions, copied one for California in three weeks. In 



The Old Forty-niner's Story. 49 

this way a State was born as if by magic, with government for 
all classes, as perfect and complete as any old community in the 
world. This convention were all new-comers selected at random. 
Nothing in the whole history of man ever raised a manhood 
equal to such an emergency. Homes had been 200 years engaged 
in this task. A grand trial of the young giant's power was to be 
exhibited in the presence of the gods. His brilliant success 
commanded the profoundest admiration of a witnessing world. 
Here was a new State formed in six weeks from its inception. 

An election was ordered to decide whether the new State 
with its new constitution should be accepted or not. At the 
same election the electors were to elect a legislature and governor 
according to the provisions of the new constitution. It was ac- 
cepted. Thus before the people of the United States, or civilized 
world, knew anything about it a new State was born. The slave 
power which controlled the Government at that time resisted its 
admission, claiming that according to compromises made that all 
territory south of 36° 30' should be left to the people to say 
whether they would have slavery or not. The South was right. 
She had a right under existing compacts to demand a vote in the 
Territory. 

It was a curious fact that the new State had been acquired by 
King Cotton for slavery, but it was more singular and took every 
one with the profoundest surprise that the child as soon as it 
was born became a man and refused to have slavery thrust upon 
it. The election for delegates, the assembling of the convention, 
the forming of a State constitution, the ratifying of the same by 
the people at the polls, forbiding slavery, took the whole matter 
out of the hands of those minds at Washington who had plotted 
other things for this splendid Territory. They, however, fought 
it in Washington. It was six long months before, under a com- 
promise, California was admitted into the Union. Under the 
terms of that compromise, that one of 1820 was repealed. 
Judge Douglas contended that now with that old compromise 
repealed, the people of a Territory decided whether they would 
have slavery or not. The South, or slavery, got a decision 
called the Dred Scott decision, establishing slavery everywhere 
in the Territory. The South still hoped to get the southern half 



50 The Old Forty-niner's Story. 

of the State for slavery, the history of which will appear in 
" Pioneer life in California. " Reader take a bird's eye view of 
that young State. Sacramento, Stockton, Marysville, and San 
Francisco were new cities, houses of cloth, shakes and adobe. 
The streets were full of goods, men and wagons and drays 
through every avenue. The whole population was young men, 
large, tall and strong. New, wide, well-beaten roads led in 
every direction to the mines. Every mile or two a new hotel 
sprang into existence, as if by magic. The whole of the United 
States was terribly excited, hundreds of mortgages were recor- 
ded in every county in the United States, in order to raise 
money to send the most trusted on to California. Very large 
numbers in making their outfits had in view the business of 
teaming on their arrival, so that horses, mules and cattle doubled 
in value in consequence of the California demand. To have an 
American horse or an American cow was quite an honor. 

The mines were considered inexhaustible by everybody. 
It was thought that the more they were worked for a hundred 
years, the more gold would be taken out. In every gulch where 
there was water there was a town; the improvements were often of 
a permanent character. The old Mexican governors were still in 
the country on their ranches. 

In consequence of this vast rush to the mines, the bands of 
cattle, sheep and horses, owned all along the coast, became im- 
mensely valuable. Just think, a Mexican, Jose Maria Sanchez — 
a hospital old fellow living on the Pajaro River, forty miles south of 
San Jose, the owner, according to Commodore Sloat's proclama- 
tion, of three large grants — had for many years kept a hun- 
dred Indians at work, skinning cattle and laying out tallow. A 
beef bringing $5.00 was a good animal, $3.00 being a 
fair average. Now he owned, on the three ranches, more than 
40,000 head. Before the mining discovery they were worth noth- 
ing until butchered. Now when driven to San Francisco or the 
markets made by the rush, they were worth $50.00 each. A man 
suddenly, as if by magic, changed from a pauper to a millionaire. 
Whisky was everywhere; men suddenly grew rich everywhere. 
The Legislature had legalized and licensed gambling. It was the 
amusement, the grand occupation of many classes. It was the 




The Old Forty-niner's Story. 61 

life and soul of the country. The bar-room of every hotel pre- 
sented its tables to attract the eager, idle and covetous. Monte, 
faro, poker, every kind of game ran every day and night. Beau- 
tiful and well dressed women dealt the cards with exquisitely white 
and well-shaped hands. Lascivious pictures hung upon the 
walls. Lewd girls, freed from the necessity of all moral restraint, 
lounged voluptuously around bar-rooms. Such bar-rooms were 
vastly patronized. Music and blazing lamps gave great anima- 
tion to the scene. No wonder the unwary visitor was tempted 
and fell before he had time to wake from the pleasing delusion. 

To make a fortune by the turning of a card was delightful. 
The very men, glad hope and fear of eventual success was a 
charming excitement. For a moment men felt as great conquerors 
may be imagined to feel. They manoeuvred on the green cloth — 
the field of their operations, thinking their own skill was play- 
ing the game when chance alone gave the result. At the end of 
a long evening's campaign of mingled victories and defeats, petty 
skirmishes, they would either draw off their forces to commence 
the game again the next day or hazard their all — thousands of dol- 
lars perhaps — on the issue of one great battle, and in a moment take 
leave of the table richer or poorer by a moderate fortune. Again 
and again were such campaigns fought and lost until the excite- 
ment and intense desire of play became chronic. When great 
sums could no longer be had, smaller ones answered the same 
purpose, and even in the end, lost like the others, gambling be- 
came a regular business and those who followed it professionally 
were really among the richest, most talented and influential citi- 
zens of the State. The sums staked were occasionally enormous. 
One evening $16,000 was called upon a faro table as a bet; the 
game lost. The money was counted out without a murmer. 
Twenty thousand dollars were often risked upon the turn of a 
card. The ordinary stakes were from fifty cents to five dollars, 
so that the ordinary day laborer could lay his moderate stake as 
stylish as a lord. The rich gamester became desperate. A half 
tipsy miner on his way East was the one who put the largest 
piles on the cloth. The bankers had no objections to these heavy 
stakes, they knew the game better than the players and were well 
aware of all the chances in their favor. 



52 The Old Forty-niner's Story. 

The extensive saloons, in each of which ten or a dozen tables 
run night and day, were continually crowded, and around the 
tables the players crowded three or four deep. The pro- 
fessional gamblers who paid great rents for the privilege of 
placing their tables in these saloons, made large fortunes by the 
business. Their tables were filled with heaps of gold and silver 
coin, with bags of gold-dust and lumps of the pure metal to tempt 
the gazer. The sight of such treasures, the occasional success of 
players, the music, the bustle, the heat, drink, greed and deviltry, 
all combined to encourage play to an extent limited only by the 
great wrath of the community. Judges and clergymen, physi- 
cians and advocates, merchants and clerks, contractors, shop 
keepers, tradesmen, mechanics and laborers, miners and farmers, 
were adventurers in their kind; every one elbowed his way to the 
gaming table and unblushingly threw down his golden or silver 
stake. While such scenes in hundreds of distinct places were 
night and day being enacted in public, the conspiracy in Wash- 
ington to get California with the Mexican grants all in large tracts 
for slavery, was only too well plotted. The wild rush for the gold 
mines did defeat the hopes of the South for slavery, but it con- 
tributed largely to the help of the plotters to get the land. The 
plotters were to get control of public affairs in the politics, elect 
the courts and State officers. They were actually the State. The 
old Mexican governors and generals and keepers of archives 
were all in the State. They could make a land grant as well now 
as before the American acquisition. They covered every foot of 
the country, which was worth at that time anything, with large 
grants and made many float grants. Gwin was senator, elected 
to serve the Pacific Mail Steamship company. Fremont in the 
interest of land grabbers. He had a large grant covering the 
Mariposa. 

Now, reader, to prove these facts, I will state that the country 
was in the hands of the Jesuits up to 1835. They owned from 
one mission to another, which were forty miles apart. A grant 
was never made till it was taken away from them. It took years 
to send to Mexico for a grant. The old soldiers of the mission 
were ignorant and composed the entire population. It was only 
eleven years between the time of the secularization of the country 




The Old Forty-niner's Story. 63 

and the time when it was conquered. Of course any one can 
see there were but few genuine grants. They claimed to have 200. 
There were 800 presented to the land commission, appointed in 
1852 by Pierce. It suited the purposes of the American plotters 
to at first fix these grants, good and bad, so that they would be 
universally confirmed. It then suited their purposes to have 
these grants all squatted on by the gold-seekers, so the politi- 
cian proclaimed from every rostrum and stump. In consequence 
of this, men were elected, pledged to pass laws that would enable 
the squatter who entered upon land in good faith as a settler to re- 
cover on final confirmation to the grants for his improvements. 
The result was that all the land on the rivers and around the 
bay and on the coast was squatted on and recorded as pre-emption 
claims. Sometimes they bought land of a grant. There were 
often two or three titles to the same tract of land. The result 
was as had been intended. A perfect harvest of law-suits for 
lawyers and courts. Job said, "The earth is given into the 
hands of the wicked, " which is no less true now than it was in his 
day. It is the standing complaint of the world. The moan of 
history is bad men in power. The land grant holders were neces- 
sarily compelled to hunt up witnesses to attend courts, to employ 
lawyers. The courts, lawyers, and attaches of courts were often 
the owners of games or put stock in the bank of games. The 
law suits were interminable. The consequence was as might have 
been expected, the Mexican grantees found themselves homeless by 
the time the battle was fought to obtain their homes. Now comes 
the battle against the squatters. They had only been led to go 
on to the land to annoy the old grantee. Suits are commenced 
for their ejectment. The squatters raise money to fight in courts 
which are too often parties in the suits. Judges are gamblers^ 
lawyers are mental slight-of-hand performers. "Now you see it 
and now you don't. " The American political system reached a 
greater depth of corruption in 1855 and '56 in California than it 
had anywhere else. The squatters' money was perhaps divided 
between the courts and attorneys. Decisions were made be- 
forehand; they were ejected from homes which according to all 
principles of right belonged to them. The people were unac- 
quainted with their leading men, and their officials were selected 



54 The Old Forty-niner's Story. 

at random. The profits of mercantile transactions and mechan- 
ical labor far exceeded the salaries of most of the government 
officers which, beside as a class, were beyond the reach of men who 
would riot bribe conventions and descend to low associations. 
The sudden and complete formation of the American govern- 
ment of California was not more wonderful than was the organi- 
zation of the spoils system of party management under the lead 
of men who had received the highest education in political cor- 
ruption before they left New York, which city furnished about 
one-sixth of the population of California, and a majority of those 
who controlled the dominant faction of the dominant party. All 
the arts founded or perfected by Tammany Hall or the Albany 
regency for defending the people out of a fair choice in the nom- 
ination of candidates. Party conventions were a farce. The 
vilest ruffians were employed by prominent politicians instructed 
to carry such and such wards. When election day approached, 
associations in the city were formed to sell their votes to the 
highest bidder. Gangs voted in every ward. The policemen 
were appointed to reward political service. They could be trusted 
for untiring labor in elections, but little could be expected from 
them in the matter of arresting criminals who had money or in- 
fluence. The most dangerous criminals in California were them- 
selves officials. Ten thousand homicides were committed between 
the years '49 and '59. 

The crime upon the ballot box, the corruptions of the public 
service, the prominence of notorious criminals and ruffians and 
their patrons in city offices, the forgery of Meigs, the failure of 
the courts to administer criminal justice properly, — all these things 
had provoked the people who were engaged in money making to 
general desperation. It was impossible to reach and punish these 
crimes by law. What was the result.? Before we discuss the 
result which was prompt and efficient for the time, go back with me 
to 185 1. John Biglar as the Democratic nominee was elected 
governor. What did that election express ? It clearly and forci- 
bly expressed the dominant will of a vast majority of the people. 
That is that the land grants were nearly every one a fraud, and that 
laws should be passed protecting the squatters. The squatters 
were loudly promised protection by politicians who knew they had 



The Old Forty-niner's Story. 55 

no power. The squatters were all powerful in politics. The land 
was all squatted on; it was worth nothing. Colonel Hollister 
bought the San Justo grant, near San Juan, for $20,000, contain- 
ing 60,000 and 70,000 acres of land worth on an average to-day 
$50.00 per acre or $3,000,000. It was all covered with squat- 
ters. 

The land commissioners were interested in the law's slow de- 
lay. In three or four years the courts and lawyers owned all the 
land. The processes were all arranged by which the squatters 
were to be ejected. 

The squatters were the sufferers of the most trying and out- 
rageous frauds ever perpetrated in the world's history. They 
were a class of men who made any sacrifices for law and order. 
A majority returned East, only to meet with disappointment. 
They never realized and the world does not to-day realize the fact 
that life in California in those days forever disqualified a man 
for a life in any other. Large numbers bought land only to get 
into lawsuits which have put many in their graves, many in in- 
sane asylums, driven many to murder. Large numbers were 
driven into the cities, towns and villages. 

In 1856 the result arising from all the foregoing causes like a 
brilliant, unknown comet, sprang into existence. The Vigilance 
Committee, a body of citizens, took that law, which they them- 
selves by their existence violated, pushed aside the officers who 
were themselves the criminals and executed, themselves, that law 
against all its violators but themselves. History does not repeat 
itself. This was a divergence from all precedent. The guilty 
were punished, the criminal element was overawed, the officials 
were forced to respect public opinion. They then turned that 
law back again to the officers of the law, gaining for themselves 
the plaudits of an astonished world. The land had all fallen 
into the hands of the few large holders. The people were driven 
into the cities, towns and villages. All had to engage in business 
of some kind. The vast majority were always poor in Califor- 
nia. This is a strange anomaly. Whisky, gambling, lewd women 
did their work. 

About this time a new discovery was made by the China 
companies. They imported large numbers of China women and, 



66 The Old Forty-niner's Story. 

according to the laws of California, they were on every street, in 
every town, large and small, in the rooms most availably situated 
for their business. This lasted many years before it was re- 
pealed. California, is the youngest son sowing his wild oats, the 
prodigal who received his patrimony. The school fund was given 
to her by the United States. She contained 188,000 square miles. 
The sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections were all school lands. It 
was sold for $2.50 per acre. The proceeds were the school 
fund, they could not be diverted. The school system has been of 
a high grade from the first; the children have had superior school 
advantages. 

No State in this Union, nor country in this civilization, has 
given any attention to physical manhood. Much has been ex- 
pended by States and nations upon mental development. Vast 
sums have been spent to educate the mind, supposing the body to 
attend to its own development. A State never made a graver mis- 
take. The first and highest duty the State owes itself and its citi- 
zens, is to prevent the monopoly of its homes, and by positive 
legislation bring about that state of affairs, or condition wherein 
all its citizens have enough land of their own from which a living 
can be made. Then they are in the condition or order in 
which God intended them to be from the foundation of the 
world. There are but few small sections of the State in the 
home condition. The climate, soil and mineral resources are 
unsurpassed. These are facts known perfectly everywhere in 
America. 

A very large emigration has continued to pour into Califor- 
nia every year from '49 to '84, a large number with means suf- 
ficient to return East in case of a failure to situate themselves 
pleasantly. A large number have come on account of health, 
arriving here almost penniless. The land, all in the hands of large 
holders, they have been driven into the cities, towns and vil- 
lages, where their children have been educated. The children 
could not get work; Chinamen were imported to do the work; 
the parents of such children had moved into a circle of well-to- 
do, respectable people. The hardest task that ever fell to the lot 
of a poor, proud mother is to feel that she is, by her dress and that 
of her children, falling gradually below their condition. So a 



The Old Forty-niner's Story. 57 

great effort is made to economize on every hand and keep abreast 
with the neighbors in appearance. The father may occasionally 
take a dram; every ten cents wasted is severely felt. The chil- 
dren when they come to the table find thereon just so much. 
The father divides it fairly and equally, the children go away half 
filled but satisfied. They have no cows to drive to the pasture, 
no pigs to feed or horse to water, but kill time by studying or 
reading till the school hour arrives for them to go to school. 
This is a description of one family. Day after day is repeated till a 
new generation is raised up. The children will be twenty-five or 
thirty pounds less in weight than the parents, and what astonishes 
the world is that they are not educated. Education like this does 
not educate only in one way, it makes a race of little, untrustworthy 
people. Now suppose the boys of such a family arrive at man- 
hood at eighteen. The family has increased its natural wants. 
The father is getting old, increasing cares are laying a heavy hand 
upon his bending body. The loving mother says: " John," to 
her oldest son, the pride of the fond heart, " I am trying to work 
to help make a living, you are in need of clothing, don't 
you think you might earn something?" "Well, mother, I have 
been thinking I would like to try if I only knew how. " The 
boy is very small, not well fed, in school all his life. There is 
positively nothing for him to do in or about his town; his best 
clothes are somewhat seedy. He starts out first in his own town, 
imported Chinamen are doing all the unskilled work, no one wants 
him. He often hears the words, " Don't want no d — n hoodlum in 
mine." He applies to every mechanic to get to learn a trade. 
"Don't want no boys in this county." Not a soul invites him to 
enter and tarry awhile and rest, no hospitable look or kindly 
word. At night he turns his weary way to find a tired father and 
mother and noisy brothers and sisters with not sufficient food for 
health and strength. At early morning, after discussing all the 
prospects through the night, he hopelessly tries it again. The 
hotel keeper says: " Johnny what are you doing? " " I am trying 
to get a job. " " Well, you cannot do much, but come and work 
in the kitchen and I will pay you all you are worth. " John is 
delighted. This hotel keeper's name is O'Brien. He has a son 
the same age of John, who has always attended the same school. 



58 The Old Forty-niner's Story. 

His bar-room is the center of attraction for the whole town; he 
has a small room attached to the bar-room, where there are two 
tables covered with a green cloth. Day and night men are gambling 
on one and often on both these tables. The bar-room has a 
peculiar language. All bar-rooms have. Nude pictures hang on 
the walls. Joseph, the oldest son, manifested a peculiar aptness in 
learning the language of the bar-room. Hideous monstrosities in 
the shape of men told yarns about the gentler sex that ought to 
have burnt out their tongues. Vulgar allusions, obscenities, is the 
language of the bar-room. The boy, as all boys will, greedily 
devoured these stories. 

Well, Joseph had also graduated as an expert gambler, but 
secretly. It was not known generally in the town. The father 
whipped him nearly to death for drink, and he had not up to this 
time drank much. He and John slept together. John soon got 
to listening to the bar-room tales. It only took two weeks to 
make him listen with relish to vulgar anecdotes, and alas for poor 
human nature, in a month under the tutoring of Joseph he had 
graduated in a China house. Every night Joseph took John to a 
room where they played cards. He declared John was the best 
player he ever saw. John beat him every night. In about a 
month O'Brien said, "Jo^^^^ I will pay you twenty dollars, you are 
a good boy, I will give you twenty-five dollars the next 
month. " With what joy and gladness he took that money to his 
rnother. Joseph stole a bottle of sweet wine and they occasionally 
sipped it. He was the stronger character of the two, besides he had 
always set down to a table well filled, and after he was done the 
table was still well filled. John soon learned to sip wine. 
Joseph was lavish with his money, always bragging about his win- 
nings. He had let John win a dollar or so at every sitting during 
the following month. When he drew his pay for the second 
month, they went to their play before John could go to see his 
mother, and Joseph won all his wages in an hour. John was 
overwhelmed with grief; he went home in the deepest misery. 
The mother's ashy look of misery. She said "Your father will 
whip you terribly. " John hid from his father. That night he 
went to Joseph and said, " Joseph lend me five dollars." "What 
for, " with a look of surprise. "Well, I am going off, mother says 



The Old P'orty-niner's Story. 59 

father will whip me and I am going to run away. " Joseph re- 
fused him — gamblers are the greediest, meanest men in the world. 
He had allowed John to win to bait him. John started off. 
We cannot follow him as he travels, turned from the door of cold, 
hard-hearted farmers, sleeping out in the chill night air. If hunger 
drove him to ask for something to eat, it was handed out like he 
was a dog. He at last got a job; he was called up at four o'clock 
in the morning, and with just time to eat his meals, he worked do- 
ing first one job and then another till eight p. m. He was too 
timid. He then crawled into the hay and shivered all night. 
Had this poor boy anything to do with the surroundings that 
made him a tramp ? 

The Sunday came. The family went to church and Sunday- 
school. He was manly and determined to stand it rather than 
tramp. The next Saturday the farmer paid him off at noon. 
"Well" said he, "let me stay until Monday, won't you ?" "No; 
there's the hotel, half a mile off, go there, you have got plenty 
to pay your way. " The poor boy went to the hotel, his board 
and lodging cost more than he had earned, what should he do ? 
To remain was to be kicked out, there was no other resource but 
to tramp. He was well educated and good looking, but small; 
every one took him for a hoodlum; he arrived at the hotel. To 
his pleased surprise he was met by the landlord with great cor- 
diality. At supper he declined to eat, just calling for a bed. 
He was pumped in regard to what he had been doing. They 
ascertained that he had worked two weeks for the rich farmer 
nearby. They knew he had some money, so the landlord and 
his family treated him with very marked politeness. The next 
morning at breakfast he made the acquaintance of Frank Stevens, 
from Iowa. He said to John in a talk the boys had: "I am 
just out of school, I always had to work on my father's farm, do- 
ing chores evenings and mornings. I am strong, weigh 175 
pounds and in good health, but would rather die than live in 
California three months longer as I have the last three months. 
I have not slept anywhere only in a hay stack and positively suf- 
fered more with cold than I thought it possible. I was a sober. 
Christian boy in Henry County, Ohio. It had for months been 
decided to send me to California as soon as I completed my 



60 The Old Forty-niner's Story. 

studies, so I came with just money enough to bring me here. 
I landed in Sacramento the fifteenth day of October, 1883, with 
one dollar. I could not get work in the city; my one dollar was 
soon gone; my trunk and clothing was pawned and soon gone. 
Poor men told me of such dreadful suffering among farmers 
that I feared to go to the country, but after two weeks I did, and 
I have had barely enough work to keep soul and body together. 
The farmers are brutal, worse than hogs. If a laborer wanting 
work asks for something to eat, they shove a crust of stale bread 
and meat out of the door. They are always pretending to be 
afraid of tramps. Never did people suffer like tramps, and never 
was a class more maligned, and never on earth did any class of 
men suffer so. California makes men tramps. The law threat- 
ens to take them up for vagrancy, if they lay around the towns 
doing nothing, and they have to tramp. I have one dollar; I had 
only one meal yesterday, and that is all I'll have to-day. I 
tramp, tramp, tramp, tramp, hunting work all over this State, 
Sunday as it is, Christian as I am, I go to-day. " 

John was crying. Said he, " I have earned $15.00, don't go, I 
will loan you a dollar to stay here to-day and go to church. You 
can pay me some day. " Frank gratefully accepted the loan as 
his feet were very sore. When he went to church he took a back 
seat. He wanted to pray and get near to God, but oh, the 
leaden feeling at his heart. It was too plainly perceptible that 
that young fellow with his worn clothes was an intruder. Not a 
welcome hand from a single member of that congregation. 

John would not go to church in his dirty old clothes. The 
landlord was very friendly, talking all the time. His daughter 
also paid him that attention and notice which a boy of eighteen 
learns to prize. John had been treated four or five times to 
wine; it was very sweet. Reader, that sweet wine is the most in- 
toxicating drink a strong man can drink. Drink of any kind 
stimulates first the predominant animal passions and puts to sleep 
the balancing moral organs. With poor John the wine had stim- 
ulated his desire to get another place and make money, and had 
put his caution to sleep. The landlord's two pretty daughters 
invited John to take a hand in a game of cards; he did so. The 
landlord said he would give the boy work at something, he 



The Old Forty-niner's Story. 61 

thought, the next morning. Hope was thus inspired to help ruin 
the poor boy. A small stake was proposed to make the game in- 
teresting. After supper the game was renewed; John had been 
winner; they wanted their revenge; they all again sat down. 
John thought he had fallen into the hands of friends, he was very 
trustful and unsuspicious. At ten o'clock when they began to get 
tired, by a few practiced tricks, they put up the cards, gave John 
big hands; the wine had destroyed his judgment and John was 
flat broke in half an hour. The landlord counted the money, 
said he had won, and said, you want a bed. " Yes, sir, " said 
John, " but I have no money. " " Well, I give no credit, if you 
want a bed you must pay for it. " John said, " I have no money, 
you have got all I had in half an hour; you won't turn me out to 
freeze after winning my money ? " "The hell I won't. Do ye's 
thinks I keeps beds for to give away to the loikes of ye's, either pay 
or go, I want to lock up. " The poor boy without a cent was 
turned upon the street, a cold January night, at ten o'clock. 
He now bitterly realized that the landlord was only carrying out 
with him a plan that had been successfully worked for years. 
This, dear reader, is just what California, the flower naturally of 
the Union, the garden spot of the world, has made herself — the 
manufacturer of tramps. 

When Frank Stevens awoke he began to inquire for his kind 
young friend. Frank Stevens was horrified when he awoke in the 
morning and found how they had robbed his young friend and 
turned him out in the cold. He found his track and in a run he 
started aftershim. About noon he overtook him; he was lying 
with his head on the root of a tree, asleep, his sweet face wet 
with tears. Sobbing very hard, like a whipped boy, Frank knelt by 
his side and prayed for that poor, stricken boy as he had never 
prayed for himself. He said, "O Father, he cannot work; no 
one will hire him, if he should get a job that taxes his poor 
frame to its utmost, some rascal of a whisky seller lays 
some plan to rob him. His lot is a terrible one; have mercy; give 
the comfort of thy spirit. " As he prayed John opened his eyes. 
With difficulty he raised himself into a sitting posture. Said he, 
" I was dreaming of my mother in the town of New York. 
She and my sisters were kneeling over me and praying for me. I 



62 ■ The Old Forty-niner's Story. 

was sorry for my sins and wanted to be on the Lord's side, but 
oh, I could not. That old Irishman was so clever I did not think 
he would take all my money, even if he won it, and his girls with 
their sweet ways fascinated me and filled me with wine till my 
judgment was sound asleep. They filled me with wine till they 
were no longer amused; they then dextrously, as they had done a 
thousand times before, put up a few hands, giving me large hands 
so that I would bet. My mother and sisters were trying to pull 
me away all the time. I have acted over again in my dream 
what occurred yesterday and last night. " As he talked he slipped 
off a shoe, his foot was badly blistered. "O God, " says Frank, 
"what a country." A wagon was passing; Frank asked the driver 
to take John to the next town. He was a fine lordly farmer. A 
few years before, in 1849, himself had been a tramp, but now he 
turned up his nose, and said, " Do you think I keep a nice, fine 
wagon and team like this to haul tramps about in ? You must think 
I'm a d — n fool." Frank was large and strong. There was ab- 
solutely no work, he could not desert his friend, they were both 
very hungry. Frank took John on his back and packed him so 
as to get him on to the next house. He had the dollar loaned 
him and the half of his own which he had yesterday. It was a 
large grant, fifteen miles across it. John had traversed about half 
the distance in the desperate effort to keep from freezing the 
night -before. To make the distance to the next ranch before 
night, desperate efforts were necessary. Despite their efforts 
night overtook them. Frank gathered a pile of wood, and by 
turning from side to side kept from freezing. John could hardly 
walk; they managed to get to the ranch the next morning. John 
bought some meat and bread at a fearfully high price, from an 
old woman who said the country was full of tramps, she had to 
feed them every hour in the day. John said, 'T have not seen 
any coming down the river. " "You haven't?" They arrived in 
Sacramento that night and slept on the bare ground in the wil- 
lows about the city. If they built a fire they would be seen and 
arrested. There is some religion and Christianity in the towns and 
cities, particularly among the American population, but the self- 
ishness and inhumanity of the foreign element is horrible, particu- 
larly towards Americans. What has poor Americans done to in- 



The Old Forty-niner's Story. 



63 



cur such rancorous hatred of the Irish and Dutch? They are 
hypocrites and the well-to-do Americans never find out that such 
is the fact. They, in open defiance, ride over our American 
Sabbath and without hesitation would sell for five cents to a boy 
that which will wreck many lives. Many men who have "ruined 
themselves and families trace their ruin back to five cents worth 
of beer bought of some Dutchman or Irishman. Their profes- 
sion of religion and friendship and patriotism is a lie. The very 
same argument they use to present the immigration of Chinese 
we ought to use to place all foreigners on a level. Keep 
America for Americans. Let us build up on homes for all our 
people a splendid manhood. Tax lands held in larger quantities 
than a man can make productive. Let homes up to a certain 
value go untaxed. 




